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JOHN COUNSELLOR’S 
EVOLUTION: 


OR, 

A REAL EXPERIENCE 


OF THE 


SECOND COMING. 


trf J 





St. Louis, Mo.: 

The John Counsellor Publishing Co. 
1903. 



the library of 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAY 21 1903 

Copyright Entry 


CLASS XXc. No. 



COPYRIGHT, IQO.3, BY 
JOHN COUNSELLOR PUBLISHING CO. 


•*. 







« 


INTRODUCTORY. 


There is no attempt in this book to write a thesis, or to state 
a theorem and then proceed to analyze and prove it; but the solution 
of a real life problem is gone through with even as a real life is 
actually lived step by step. 

Hence, we will not, by introductory, preface, or story, depict 
a painted ship on a painted sea, but rather will launch an actual 
Cunarder—of the Life Line—and ask our readers, and more 
especially our own kindred, to step aboard at the gang plank of 
Chapter No. i and land with us at the “desired haven,”—resting 
assured that “they that go down to the sea in ships, that do business 
in great waters,” notwithstanding that they see the waves mount 
up and overflow their “old heaven” and painfully experience at 
times that they themselves “reel to and fro” as did John, and 
“stagger like a drunken man” and are at their “wit’s end,” yet if 
they “in order to know, will follow on to know,” then will they be 
brought into a much to be desired haven, and, being landed in the 
portway of a “new earth” and a “new heaven,” will gladly exclaim: 
“Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for 
His wonderful works to the children of men!” 

The Book of Revelation with its seemingly weird visions always 
had a singularly fascinating effect upon the author of this “Real 
Experience of the S,econd Coming of the Son of Man.” And if 
John Counsellor, in the years even before his “teens,” could never 
read without gushes of tears what he *hen, childlike, regarded as a 
mere visionary cyclorama of “doors open in heaven,” what effect 
may not be expected to have been made on his later life when this 
seeming merely painted parade of visions materialized into actual 
persons, places, and things of his own actual experience? 

If, as seemingly mere fabrics of youthful dreamland, he was 
so greatly affected by the word painting of the “One on a great 
white horse” with a new heaven and a new earth following in His 
wake, going forth conquering and to conquer those riding upon 





4 


INTRODUCTORY. 


“red” and “black” and “pale” horses with “death and hell following 
with them,” how much more would he be affected by the very real 
things symbolized by those horses? If he wept at the mere vision 
of an ugly and hateful “great whore sitting upon many waters” and 
making all the “captains” and “great men” and “merchantmen” and 
“inhabitants of the earth” drunk on the cup of her enchantments and 
dainties, how much more would he wail at the recognition that he 
and his own kindred were all “drunk” on the actual spiritual cup 
in which the spiritual fornications and adulteries of this hateful 
woman sparkled and moved themselves, accompanied with the real 
woes of having such real cups pressed to his real lips? 

And, on the other hand, if there was a subtle charm—yea, a 
great drawing of heart toward the mere vision—the mere ambrotype 
of that other woman “clothed with the sun,” with stars for a crown, 
how much greater would be the emotions stirred in his bosom on 
being embraced in the motherly arms of the very reality symbolized 
by this sun-clad woman? 

If the mere reading about trumpets sounded loud and long by 
angels stirred peculiar emotions in his bosom, what earthquakes 
of feeling, what “thunderings and lightnings” of thought, were 
stirred in John’s heart and mind when the real truths indicated by 
the angels sounding trumpets were actually proclaimed in his ears 
as real life problems that he must at once and forever meet and 
solve? 

If the mere fancies of visions produced tears, well might the 
actual materialization of these visions along the pathway of forty 
years of actual life produce on the side of “red” and “black” and 
“pale” horses, and on the side of tlie “great harlot” such things as 
“earthquakes and darkening of sun, moon, and stars,” and “locusts” 
and “lice,” “dragons” and “beasts,” and “hell and death,” as pro¬ 
claimed in Revelation! 

And, on the other hand, if the mere reading, without the least 
understanding of what was read, of the glorious woman as the Bride 
of the Son of Man, filled John’s horizon of life with a soft sunshine 
as the heavens of a southern clime are suffused with the morning 
beams of a coming summer day, what sunshine and what softened 
mellowness of life might not be expected to come to him in finding, 
while yet on the earth, that this glorious sun-clad Woman was his 
own spiritual mother? 


INTRODUCTORY. 


5 


It may to some appear very strange that such things as 
“scenes among border ruffians” and experiences among bedraggled 
politicians and pettifoggers, accompanied with disputations with 
those like himself, the blind leading the blind of a “fallen ! a fallen!! 
a fallen ! ! !” ecclesiasticism, should preclude and lead up to the 
final outcome; but when we consider the great prayer, “Holy Father, 

. . . I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, 

but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil,” and that all 
old things of the “old heaven” and the “old earth” must necessarily 
be rolled up like a scroll and pass away in order that the new things 
of the “new heaven” and “new earth” may take their place,— Such 
considering is merely in keeping with the thousandth time repeated 
truth, in Scripture, that to find a new life the old one must be laid 
down and lost; and, with some at least, there is a necessity that 
the abominations of the Babylonized woman who maketh the 
“captains”’ and “merchantmen” and “great men” of earth drunk, 
mu^t be experienced before there can be created a proper yearning 
of heart for the all-loving mother—the glorious woman clothed 
with the Sun. 

The writer has many sons and daughters into whose innocent 
faces he has often looked as they sat round the home fireside while 
yet the mother was there to draw and hold them as with, a great 
centripetal force to all things of good report. But this home heaven 
has, by the death of the mother, been rolled up like a scroll and 
has passed away. These children must form new home heavens and 
go forth into the villages and vineyards of, to them, “new earths,” 
and calling to mind the many sad and sorrowing struggles that this 
mother and her husband hadjn their forty years of travel and travail 
between the Egypt of an old “fallen” ecclesiasticism, known as 
Babylon, and the city coming down on the earth from God out of 
heaven described by the Apocalyptic Seer as the City, or Church, 
of the New Jerusalem,—with the mother gone and the old home 
gone, and these children going out on life’s weary journey of regen¬ 
eration, the author felt it incumbent upon him to give to these chil¬ 
dren and to their descendants for seventy and seven generations in 
permanent written or printed language the real experiences of their 
now sainted mother and of their father in coming out of the old 
earth and heavens and going forward into the gates of a new 
spiritual earth and heavens. 


6 


INTRODUCTORY. 


Having this experience thus set before them, these children may 
be saved from a thousand snares and pitfalls,—may be saved from 
the many “dragons” on the left and the many “wild beasts” on the 
right of the road of life which they each and all must travel. 

But as the book progressed there arose in the author’s breast 
a feeling perhaps akin to that of Paul when he exclaimed: * “I say 
the truth in Christ. I lie not, my conscience also bearing with me 
witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual 
sorrow in my heart . . . for my brethren,”—for my old brother 

Methodist preachers, for my old brother attorneys, and for an in¬ 
numerable company of brother reformers who have been companions 
with me in a kingdom of seemingly forlorn struggle for something 
better for our wives and our children and our countrymen ! For the 
benefit of all these, and for all that in them is, or was, or is to be, 
this will be published. 


THE AUTHOR. 


CHAPTER I. 


SAMPLE SCENE IN BORDER RUFFIANDOM AMONG 
PREACHERS. 


The Request of a “Minister of the Gospel”—This Request Rejected 
by Other “Ministers of the Gospel”—A Disciple of Alexander Campbell 
is a Little Exercised—An Old-Time “Preachers’ Home”—The Virginian 
Mother of Our Hero a Little Bit “Tainted”—Scene at a Southern Meth¬ 
odist Parsonage—Weakness of “Having a Heart”—Sample Stalwarts of 
the “Auream Mediocritatem”—“Em” Appears in the Distance—A Cloud 
Indicating the Coming of Mars to Supplant the Prince of Peace. 


On the first Monday of September, 1856, the circuit court of a 
certain county located in what is called the “Border Ruffian” district 
of Missouri was to convene. 

On the Saturday before the convening of the court all of the 
clergy who had charge of churches in the town were visited by an 
ancient “minister of the Gospel.” This minister was from the 
State of Iowa, and w r as a member of what was then commonly 
called the “Northern Methodist Church.” His name, as I remember, 
was Butler. The occasion of his visit to this Missouri town was 
that he had business in the court about to convene touching some 
estate of his wife, who had been born and reared in Missouri. To 
each of the local clergy he stated substantially that he was a 
Methodist minister in good standing in the Iowa Conference of 
the M. E. Church; that for fifty years he had never failed on 
Sunday to preach a Gospel sermon; that he was visiting the town 
on court business which would keep him over Sunday, and that 
he desired the use of a church building to preach in on that 
day; stating that he did not wish to break a record of fifty years’ 
preaching without missing a Sunday, also that he did not wish to 
interfere with any of the regular services, but would preach at any 
convenient time of the afternoon. 

There were five church buildings in the town, each in charge 
of a resident pastor. Each of these pastors refused the request of 
(7) 





8 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


the Iowa brother minister. The reason of this refusal was, not that 
Rev. B. was heterodox or unorthodox, or otherwise objectionable 
from a religious standpoint; but that he was what they called a 
“Northern Methodist.” The refusal of some of the resident clergy 
was couched in very kindly terms. One of them, of the Alexander 
Campbell faith, by name Edder Holly, was even coupled with a 
most regretful apology, because he himself only a few years before 
had been refused the use of a so-called “Evangelical Orthodox 
Church” building because he was a “Campbellite.” But no recollec¬ 
tion of ostracism for being a “Campbellite” was strong enough to 
enable our Disciple brother to go up against the mad and murderous 
feeling that then prevailed along the Missouri border against every 
person, place, and thing tinctured wdth, or having any connection, 
past, present, or suspected future, with Abolitionism. What took 
place at the parsonage of the Southern Methodists perhaps was the 
mustard seed from which, as a small beginning, there started an 
evolution out of many old ideas and an involution into many new 
ones on the part of the hero of this historical romance in going 
up out of the things of a mere ecclesiasticism into the life of a 
Christology that knows no limit either in its sunshine in all longi¬ 
tudes of love, or in showering its rain in all the latitudes of truth. 

John Counsellor was, at the time of the Iowa brother’s visit 
to the pastor, quite a youth. His father and mother’s house 
had been from his earliest recollection what was called a “preachers’ 
home.” Thousands of these preachers’ homes were to be found 
in Missouri at that day. They were called so on account of the 
generous and joyful hospitality extended to itinerant preachers. 
Perhaps not even will new-comers, arriving through the resurrection 
in the country where the thief went with Christ, be made to feel 
more at home when the ministering angels who are appointed to 
take charge of all “heirs of salvation,” receive them into their 
beautiful “homes not made with hands” and entertain them “without 
money and without price,” than were the old-time Methodist 
preachers made to feel at the ancient “preachers’ home” in Missouri 
during the forties and fifties. 

There was another circumstance which doubtless caused the 
things that we are about to relate to make a deep and lasting 
impression on John Counsellor. His mother was of an old Virginia 
family who owned many slaves; but, nevertheless, was, to use the 
sinister language then prevalent, somewhat “tainted with aboli- 


SAMPLE SCENE IN BORDER RUFFIANDOM. U 

tionism.” This “taint” consisted in a very general belief that the 
true solution of the slave question was to be found in a system of 
gradual emancipation with compensation to owners, and the coloniza¬ 
tion under their own vine and fig tree of those released from 
bondage. John’s mother was badly “tainted” with this Jeffersonian 
and original Virginian solution of the slave problem. So much 
so was this that she was threatened with prosecution for violating 
a statutory law. of Missouri which prohibited under severe 
penalties the teaching of slaves to read or write. Notwithstanding 
this statute, Mrs. Counsellor would, on every convenient occasion, 
especially on Sunday afternoons', have all of the black (the term 
“colored” was not then in vogue) pickaninnies come into “The 
House” and learn their “A, B, Abs, etc. 

In addition to this “taint” John’s mother was somewhat afflicted 
with the weakness of having a heart, which in a commercial age 
that only inquires how much corn or cotton can “a hand” raise, is 
a real affliction when viewed from a mere worldly standpoint. This 
weakness of “having a heart” was one of the iniquities, as viewed 
by the world, which were visited upon and often seriously affected 
her son John in after years. As a candidate for some high place 
or estate in Heaven, the possession of a heart is a good, perhaps 
absolutely necessary, requisite for success; but in the struggle for a 
high place in the temples of the world, the flesh, and the devil it is 
a serious hinderance. 

John’s father, while neither very hot for nor very cold against 
his wife’s views, was a public man, though not a mere politician; 
and the prevalent public sentiment kept him somewhat conservative. 
Yet, at times, when any particular outrage took place, such as was 
calculated to touch the deep centers of that which is humane, his 
father was as fearless as a lion in denouncing the outrage and 
.standing up in defense of the weak and the wronged. There was 
a legion of this kind of conservatives in Missouri before and during 
the war. Noted among these were the Rollinses, the Doniphans, 
the Kings, the Halls, the Blairs, the Browns, the Crittendens, the 
Mosses, the Olivers, the Phelpses, the Gambles, the Binghams, the 
Switzlers, the Garners, the Mosbys, the Richardsons, the Rylands, 
the Leonards, the Orrs, the Moseleys, and whole constellations of 
patriots who loved law and order, and loved their country and 
their countrymen—stalwarts of the “auream mediocritatem” It is 
sad to relate that, while the names of many non-ecclesiastical laymen 


10 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


like the above were helpful to the ’woman in her contest in the 
wilderness with the dragon, the names of few prominent men among 
the clergy can be recalled who did not, on this or that side, of this 
and that controversy, join in with the great red dragon that all 
during the fifties and sixties was spewing out fire and blood to 
the destruction of the woman and her child. This was so marked 
that it seemed a fulfillment of the prophecy of the Prince of Peace, 
that the children of the kingdom would be cast out and publicans 
be taken in their places. 

It may seem a diversion to mention the names above, but as 
these men and their families were in many things connected with 
and had an influence on the life of John Counsellor, we deem it 
in line with the purpose of our historical narrative to mention them. 

And, moreover, while such men were the apostles of the Gospel 
balm of “reasoning together/' characteristic of the school of the 
Prince of Peace, rather than bulldozers who worship at the blood¬ 
stained shrines of the temple of Mars, and though they may not 
figure very largely at “Grand Army Reunions" or be lionized at 
U. C. Encampments, they will always be cherished in history as 
the salt that saved Missouri; and in the great roll-call to be made, 
not by Mars, but by the Prince of Peace, they will with cheery 
and courageous voice respond, “Present, and ready for duty!” But 
especially should this class be mentioned because the daughter of 
one of those named had, perhaps, more to do as a sweetheart and 
final “help-meet,” in strengthening John Counsellor in his abandon¬ 
ment of a kind of worship like that spoken of by the woman at 
the well of Samaria, and his espousal of the life of worship which 
the Christ preached at the same well. 

But to return to the thread of our story. When the Iowa 
minister called at the Southern Methodist parsonage, John Coun¬ 
sellor, who had just returned from school at the State University, 
was visiting the comely daughter of the occupant of the parsonage, 
for all of John’s folks were Methodists. What took place between 
the two preachers will, perhaps, be better understood by the follow¬ 
ing talk between John and his father and mother on that Saturday 
night. 

“Mamma,” said John to his mother, “I was this afternoon at 
our parsonage and was really hurt at our preacher. I was not 
only hurt, but surprised. In fact, I was both surprised and disgusted 
to such a degree that I declare, notwithstanding you know how 


SAMPLE SCENE IN BORDER RUFFIANDOM. 


11 


much I think of the preacher and his family, especially of Em, that 
E have about concluded never to go to hear Mr. McNal preach 
again. In fact, if it were not for seeing Em, I wouldn’t.” 

“Oh, no, no, my son,” replied his mother. “Do not talk so. 
You are overly excited. But I know you are in the wrong and 
that you certainly misunderstood what Brother McNal did and 
said. What in the world did he do, or what did he say to you ?” 

“Why,” replied John, “he didn’t do or say anything unpleasant 
to me. He was, I may say, extra kind to me. But there was 
another person who, I assure you, was treated so unkindly, if not 
to say so unchristianly, that I was shocked; and even Em cried; 
though her mother seemed to side with Mr. McNal. Em and I 
were sitting in the parlor from which the large window opens out 
upon the porch. Mr. and Mrs. McNal were sitting out there. A 
very pleasant and fatherly looking man came down the street, 
opened the gate, and walked up to the porch. Mr. McNal had 
just returned from up town and the ‘Northern Methodist abolition 
preacher’ had been pointed out to him on the street by some of the 
boys. So, recognizing the Iowa brother, Mr. McNal did not so 
much as ask him to have a chair; but, addressing him as he stood 
on the step of the porch, said: 

“ ‘What will you have, sir ?’ 

“His exceeding abruptness of manner and voice arrested at 
once the attention of Emily and myself, and we could not help 
being eavesdroppers to what took place between the two preachers. 
To the abrupt inquiry of Mr. McNal the stranger replied: 

“‘My name is Butler. .1 am a Methodist minister in good 
standing in the Iowa Conference, and—’ 

“Here Mr. McNal interrupted him, saying: 

“ ‘You had better tell the truth and say that you are a Northern 
Methodist abolition, nigger-loving preacher?’ 

“ ‘Pardon me,’ said the Northern preacher. ‘I only called to 
request—’ 

“Here Mr. McNal interrupted again to say: 

“ ‘Preachers that are preaching insurrection among the slaves 
of our good people are not in position to make requests of the 
pastors of these people. The pastor is but a shepherd to keep the 
wolves off of the flock.’ 

“Right then I looked at Em and said: 


12 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“ ‘That man doesn’t look like a wolf. If you think he does, 
why I’ll be your shepherd dog to go out and run him off. But he 
doesn’t look like that. He won’t eat you up unless he is a little 
hungry for sugar.’ 

“I perpetrated this little pleasantry in the effort to pour a little 
oil on the troubled waters that seemed to be brewing at our 
preacher’s house. To this Em answered: 

“ ‘I expect, John, that father knows these abolition preachers 
better than you do. I heard him and Mr. Prottsley, our presiding 
elder, talking last week about the doings of what they called 
‘Northern Methodist abolition preachers,’ and if one-half of what 
father and Mr. Prottsley said is true, then I think I had better 
engage you as a body-guard. I won’t say shepherd dog, because 
you know I couldn’t use such a term as dog in connection with you. 
However, John, you take very much after your mother, and you 
know that some of our preachers say that your mother is a little— 
Well, yes, what do they say?’ 

“ ‘I suppose they say that mother is ‘tainted with abolitionism,’ 
I replied. 

“ ‘Yes, yes,’ said Em. ‘That, I believe, is what they say. But, 
John, you and I know one thing very well, that however that may 
be, there wouldn’t be much quarreling among preachers if they 
liked each other as you and I do.’ 

“ ‘Couldn’t you use another word instead of ‘liked’,—one that 
begins and ends with the same letters and has the same number of 
letters?’ I couldn’t help asking. 

“Em blushed and said, ‘Girls are a bit modest in saying some 
things that even might be true.’ 

“ ‘My sakes!’ all of a sudden exclaimed Em. ‘Why, certainly, 
father and the man are not going to fight.’ 

“This exclamation was called forth by a fierce remark made 
by Mr. McNal to the Northern preacher, in which he ordered him 
off the premises, and told him that he would be compelled to put 
him off if he did not go at once. To which Mrs. McNal added: 

“ ‘Some people’s room is better than their company.’ 

“Here the Northern preacher again tried to tell the object of 
his visit, which was to get the use of the Southern Methodist 
Church to preach in on Sunday afternoon. But Mr. McNal would 
listen to nothing, and kept murmuring, ‘Tut! Tut! Get out!’ and 


SAMPLE SCENE IN BORDER RUFFIANDOM. 


13 


made some indefinite allusion to what ‘the boys’ would probably 
do if he did not leave town pretty quick. 

“It is needless to say that the visiting preacher ‘loaded his 
freight’ and moved on, looking a little worse for the wear of feelings. 
As he went out at the gate Mrs. McNal, with that humane feeling 
that a woman can’t help having, said to her husband: 

“ ‘I don’t feel right at our treatment of the man. There is 
something wrong somewhere.’ Didn’t Pilate’s wife have a dream 
with some such prescience in it? Mrs. McNal seemed to have what 
our boys at the university club call ‘a prescience’ of some coming 
ominous evil. To relieve her strained feelings Mr. McNal said: 

“ ‘Of course there is something wrong. These Northern 
preachers with their prating about the negro are mere fire-brands. 
They don’t love the negro, but they hate the negro owner. They 
want to steal our property,—not our negroes so much, but our 
church property. If these Northern incendiaries had it in their 
power there would not be a church building left to us Southern 
Methodists.’ ” 

(Not many years afterward John saw that there was some 
truth in this remark that the Northern brethren had a hankering 
after the church property of their Southern brethren.) 

“ ‘Here Em said : 

“ ‘I tell you, John, that on this Kansas-Nebraska Bill question, 
or whatever people call it, that is stirring up not only politicians 
but preachers, you and I had better act the part of the rabbit,— 
‘lay low and say nuffin.’ 

“I suggested: ‘Perhaps, Em, you might, instead of being a 
rabbit, be a little turtle dove looking out for an olive leaf to carry 
home as a sign of the subsidence of any angry waters that may 
try to sweep you and me apart. This slavery question that has put 
so much bad blood between the Northern and Southern Methodists 
is a hard problem. It seems to be like the city of London, out of 
which and into which, seemingly, all roads run.’ I said that I had 
heard of a great senator saying in a public speech that there was 
an irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery. What he 
meant by this I can hardly say, but it does appear that it is giving 
ground for the inquiry made bv Jack Hines of papa the other day 
when papa and I were in town. You recollect, papa, that Jack 
asked you what a ‘crissus’ is, because the ‘politicians are always 
talking of it.’ Jack remarked that since the year 1850 he had never 


14 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


heard a Democratic speech nor read a democratic paper without 
being warned that ‘the country was in a crissus;’ and he wanted to 
know ‘what a crissus is/ He seemed to have an idea that it was 
some swarm of Egyptian locusts, or perhaps some slaughtering 
angel such as destroyed the hosts of Sennacherib, or at least some 
portentous sign of blood on the moon that threatened the gloaming 
of a coming night wherein men would get drunk on blood to vomit 
up crime/’ 

The reader will please know that at this time John had just 
passed through the sophomore class at the State University. 

“Yes,” remarked his father, “I recollect about Jack’s inquiry, 
and I recollect how difficult it was to explain to him that the country 
was in the hands, politically, of a desperate set of party politicians 
who were hungry for public pie; and, religiously, was under a 
zealous but unintelligent set of clergy that seemingly ignored a 
charity that hopeth all things and endureth all things, and instead, 
seemed to obtrude themselves into the high office of Him who saith, 
‘Vengeance is mine.’ I told Jack that if the politicians would pro-* 
claim and practice patriotism instead of partyism, and if the 
preachers would preach Christ-ism instead of church-ism, there 
would be no crisis, or, as Jack termed it, ‘crissus.’ But just as 
long as there was an indecent scramble of preachers to build up 
their churches, and a hungry howl of party politicians to build up 
their ‘par-tee,’ the country would be in a ‘crissus’ which would end 
in war; and God only knows what the war would end in. One of 
the ends of war, however, is a dead certainty, and that is, at the 
end of it the angel of history, with one foot on the party politicians 
and the other on the preachers, will proclaim, not that time is no 
more, but that ‘slavery is no more.’ ” 

To this John asked, “Isn’t Mr. McNal in favor of slavery?” 

“Yes,” replied his father. 

“Then this is strange,” said John, “for he seemed more warlike 
than the abolition preacher.” 

To this Judge Counsellor replied: “Perhaps, if you could hear 
the Northern preacher in his pulpit in the North you might be led 
to believe that he hadn’t even heard of the heart hunger of the 
Prince of Peace that all swords should be beaten into plowshares, 
and all spears be turned into pruning-hooks. On my recent trip 
North, out of the four Sundays that I attended church, I did not 
hear a prayer or a sermon that was not calculated to make one 


SAMPLE SCENE IN BORDER RUFFIANDOM. 


15 


believe that Mars and not the Christ was the ‘Wonderful, the Coun¬ 
sellor, the Almighty God, and the Everlasting Father.’ ” 

“Well,” said John’s old Virginia-hearted mother, “from what 
John says there seems to be a ‘criss-us’ on hand between Brother 
McNal and the Northern Methodist brother. Suppose we have 
a dinner next week and invite Brother and Sister McNal to spend 
the day with us and talk over these matters.” With John’s mother 
a good dinner was the panacea for every woe. 

This proposition was assented to by all, but John wanted to 
know whether Em was also to be invited; and Judge Counsellor 
remarked that it seemed that a good many of the preachers were as 
deaf as adders to the call, “Come, let us reason together,” and that 
he had but little hope of anything coming from an interview with 
Brother McNal other than disputation, all of which would end in 
a kind of bottomless pit of crimination and recrimination. 

“You recollect,” said he, “how solid all of our Southern Meth¬ 
odist preachers were against Senator Benton because the senator 
was known to favor a system of gradual emancipation coupled 
with compensation to the owners and the colonization of the freed- 
men. When I spoke at Weston last summer in favor of the election 
of Benton to the Senate, one of the preachers who had often eaten 
at our table whispered around that perhaps a decent coat of tar and 
feathers administered to me by the ‘be-hoys’ accompanied by a 
carriage ride out of town on a rail would be good for my health.” 

This account so excited John that he was overcome by his 
feelings, and lapsed into one of his college-boy states which caused 
him temporarily to take “his letter out of the church” long enough 
to exclaim, regardless of the presence of his mother: 

“The h— 1 , you say, father! What preacher was that? It 
certainly was not McNal! If so, good-bye, Em! which is saying 
about as much as I can.” 

His mother rebuking him for such language, the family talk 
was ended by a request on the part of Mrs. Counsellor that the 
Judge go to town to-morrow and see if there was anything in 
Brother McNal’s threat that the visiting preacher had better leave 
town. Perhaps he was in danger of tar and feathers and a ride out 
of town on a rail. 


CHAPTER II. 


A NORTHERN METHODIST PREACHER IN THE TOILS OF 
RUFFIAN REGULATORS. 


A Judge with an Eye to the Main Chance—A Sheriff Who May or 
May Not Have Been a Good Samaritan—The Regulators Hear of a 
“Meetin’ ” Not Announced from the Pulpit—A, B, C, et al, Get Up a 
Reception at Which Fuss and Feathers Are to be Mixed Up with Tar 
and a Rail—A Rope Might Be Needed—Men Only to Take Part, The 
Sisters Not to be in It—The Balms of an Indian Summer Day Bottled Up 
with a Fly in the Apothecary’s Shop—The Court Organized—Prisoner Gets 
the Benefit of “Counsel” but Not “Clergy”—Sample Speech Back in the 
Fifties. 


The request of the Northern preacher being refused by all the* 
resident pastors, so far as their respective churches were concerned, 
nothing was left to him but to preach elsewhere than in a church, 
or not to preach at all. He applied to the circuit judge for the 
use of the court-house. The judge, being a wary old politician, 
referred him to the sheriff, who, he said, had charge, under the 
statutes, of the court-house, and so the Rev. Mr. Butler called upon 
the sheriff, who informed him that the court (he did not say who 
the court was) had passed an order that there should be no more 
preaching in the court-house. 

Now the sheriff was not a member of any church, and, like the 
old Samaritan mule-rider, would sometimes get off and lend his 
mule to a stranger in need when neither a Levite nor a priest would 
do so. This is often the case, and is very commendable, although 
it puts the preacher in a bad light. Still the Christ so says it. So 
the sheriff told the preacher that the court-house yard was set in 
grass and shaded with locust trees, and would be a good place to 
preach; that the order of the court had not prohibited preaching 
in the yard; and that, if the preacher wanted the use of the yard, 
it would be at his service. The sheriff even went so far as to say 
that he would get a table or box for a pulpit, and would furnish 
a pitcher of water for pulpit use. Now, whether the sheriff did 
this with the same motive that actuated the old Samaritan, or 
( 16 ) 




IN THE TOILS OF BORDER RUFFIAN REGULATORS. 17 

whether he did it as one who was in league with the devil and the 
town “be-hoys” to lead the preacher into a trap, is only known to 
Him who knows how to select one man and reject another of two 
men who are working the same work in the same field, yet with 
an entirely different motive. Like most office-holders of that day, 
perhaps, the sheriff, whose name, if I recollect aright, was Cal Cates, 
made votes the best way he could, and often carried water on both 
shoulders. Perhaps the sheriff became all things to all men. To 
those who favored the ancient mule-rider’s sentiment he boasted of 
being a good Samaritan, and to the “be-hoys” around town he 
became as one of those who, as will be seen hereafter, “had it in” 
for the Northern preacher. From this long time of view, the writer 
will say that, from his personal recollection of the sheriff, he believed 
he was actuated by the sentiment that induced the Samaritan to 
lend a helping hand to the badly used stranger. His failure to 
come to the rescue of the preacher on that afternoon when he 
needed help was no doubt owing to the reign of terror that, at that 
day, bulldozed into acquiescence many good law-and-order men. 
In fact, the anti-abolitionaries foamed and frothed at the mouth 
to such an extent, not only in what is called Border Ruffiandom, 
but all over the .South, that but few men were found to be Christs, 
or even rough Sam Houstons, openly to defy the mob, though the 
mob was often in the great minority. I think that, on the occasion 
we are about to relate, leaving out the party politicians, the 
preachers, and “the be-hoys around town,” a great majority of all 
other classes were greatly opposed to the disgraceful proceedings 
that took place in open daylight that Sunday afternoon at' the 
county seat of one of the best counties in Missouri. The writer 
knows from personal knowledge that the member of Congress from 
that district, the circuit judge, the district clerk, the member of 
the Legislature from the county where the affair took place, together 
with John Counsellor’s father and his family, were exceedingly 
opposed to the arrest and mock trial that overtook the preacher. 
Perhaps, on a canvass of votes, two-thirds or more of the voters of 
the county would have condemned the arrest and trial of the 
preacher. But all history shows that a zeal-without-knowledge 
priesthood, coupled with a very few party politicians and Pontius 
Pilates, can carry out their awful work against the genuine wish 
of the unorganized multitudes whose hearts are stirred with indigna¬ 
tion against all kinds of crucifixions and brutalities. 


2 


18 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


The sheriff placed a goods box, a chair, and a pitcher of water 
in the court-house yard for the use of the preacher. All of the 
pastors refused to announce the meeting from their pulpits. How¬ 
ever, this was not necessary; for the “regulators" were at work 
among the rabble as soon as the sheriff was seen to put the preacher’s 
outfit in the court-house yard and state what it was for. Very 
general notice was thus had of the “meetin’," and especially of what 
would be the outcome of it. A was to prepare tar, B a pillow of 
feathers “to make," as he stated, “the derned head of an abolition 
preacher rest easy in his bed—if a greased rail could be called a 
bed." C was to get a rail. “The sharper the edge, the better," 
remarked one of the boys. D was to get a rope “to tie the pig on 
to the rail," and perhaps, under certain contingencies, to be used 
as a cravat for the neck of an abolition agitator. What was called 
a committee of the \vhole outfit was to whoop up things and have 
a big crowd of the “be-hoys" at the “preachin’ " ready for any and 
every emergency. The women folks were to be kept away. This 
entire absence of the women, especially at a preaching, which was 
conspicuous in the large crowd that confronted the preacher that 
afternoon, might well have put him on the lookout for danger. 
Perhaps it did. 

At three o’clock in the afternoon of this beautiful Sabbath-day 
in the mellow month of September, the preacher was confronted 
by an audience of over one hundred people. Among these was 
John Counsellor, who came at the instance of his mother to see what 
was going on. Everything was lovely except men. The balmy 
aromas of an Indian summer baptized all nature with subdued 
sunshine. The summer birds were singing aloft in the trees. All 
out of doors seemed to be a temple of the gods with all that is 
peaceful and lovely; and all things appeared to proclaim that the 
God of Peace was in his holy temple of nature. 

Yet, as a fact, nearly every heart in that audience was fatally 
bent on mischief. The long pent up wrath of the proslavery lamb 
was about to have a chance of wreaking vengeance on the abolition 
beast. At least this was about the way the matter was viewed by 
some on the Missouri border at that day. Some, it is true, were 
there from curiosity. So far as John Counsellor was concerned, 
he was under strict pledge from his father to have nothing to sav 
under any circumstances. 


IN THE TOILS OF BORDER RUFFIAN REGULATORS. 


19 


John’s father, while an absolutely fearless man when occasion 
required bold and even aggressive action, was yet very cautious, 
and did not deem it the part of wisdom to run ruthlessly up against 
the bosses of danger. He regarded the flood that like a roaring- 
deluge was sweeping all things before it, as something that had to 
be let alone until the rushing and seething waters had spent their 
force and subsided. Just at that time, though often scanning the 
horizon for some place for a dove to rest it3 feet or pluck an olive 
leaf, he saw none; and he often said to his family that, as we are 
not responsible for the coming storm, we must simply stand still 
and see the salvation of God. This policy was not in exact accord 
with John’s mind, yet, owing to his mother having been afflicted 
with the weakness of having a heart, it met a response in his 
feelings. Besides, even at that early age, he clearly discerned that 
the way of wisdom is not to overcome evil with evil—that such a 
procedure is but a bottomless pit; but that the height of wisdom, 
both divine and human, is to overcome evil with good. However, 
he had such an impulsive nature that often he was only delivered 
from danger by having the “angels given charge over him and 
holding him up in their hands lest he dash his foot against a stone.” 

The time for opening the services had come. The preacher 
gave out as the opening hymn that old familiar Methodist song, 
“Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,” etc. At the conclusion of 
it he prayed, among other things, that “our president and governors 
and all in authority be blessed with wisdom to rule for the benefit 
of all the.people.” He then read as a scriptural lesson what is 
commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. Then, singing in solo 
the old tune, “I love Thy courts, O God,” he arose and was just 
reading his text, “I am the Resurrection,” when a regulator tapped 
him on the shoulder from behind and said: 

“My brother, consider yourself under arrest.” 

The preacher seemed somewhat nonplused, but recovering him¬ 
self, replied: 

“Under arrest for what?” 

“For preaching insurrection among our slaves,” replied the 
regulator. 

“Why,” rejoined the preacher, “I haven’t as yet preached any¬ 
thing.” The regulator replied, 

“What about your text? Didn’t it say something about in¬ 
surrection—or something equivalent to it?” 


20 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Why, no,” replied the preacher. “My text was about the 
resurrection, and—” 

Here another regulator, seeing that the preacher was about to 
outdo his companion, stepped abruptly up and said: 

“See here, Pard, it don't make a d-n bit of difference be¬ 

tween words and words—whether insurrection or resurrection— 
the mainest point in this case is this 'ere thing: Ain’t you a 
Northern Methodist preacher all the way from Iowa or some other 
abolition district? You needn’t deny this, because some of we’uns 
have hearn you tell one of our parsons that you air such a kind of 
preacher, or its squivalent, and we are the boys who have studied 
geometry or geography enough to know that a squivalent is one 
and the same thing as the thing that it air squivalent to. So without 
any more jaw-bone, just come along with us boys.” 

At this there was a‘general shout from the crowd. 

“Head him towards the public hall, Bill. And if he* don’t work 
in the lead in gittin’ up and gittin’ thar quick, we’ll ride him thar 
on a rail.” 

Here Bill said: 

“See yere, Pard, you’ve hearn the verdict of the court that you 
git up and go afoot to the public hall, or be carried thar on a flowery 
bed of ease to be found on the sharp side of a rail.” 

The preacher had somewhat agreed with Bill that there wasn't 
much difference between words and words—between a court and a 
mob—so far as actual assets were concerned, and he concluded to 
“git up and git” to the public hall as the court that was trying him 
had ordered. 

Arriving at the public hall, a high court was organized by the 
selection of a judge, a prosecuting attorney, and a sheriff to summon 
a jury. A prominent member of one of the leading churches of the 
place was elected judge. A “rising young lawyer” was elected 
prosecuting attorney; and Bill, the regulator who cduldn’t see any 
difference, under certain circumstances, between one word and any 
other word, provided you wanted to do a thing that you had already 
determined to do, was elected sheriff. The judge swore the sheriff, 
on an almanac that happened to be lying on the table, that he would 
“without any favor whatever to defendant, fix sich jurors as are 
well known to favor giving a derned abolition preacher the alterna¬ 
tive of being hung without the benefit of counsel or clergy, or being 
tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail!” 



21 


IN THE TOILS OF BORDER RUFFIAN REGULATORS. 

\ 

This proceeding had been noised through the town, and while 
Bill was out selecting, or rather “Axin’,” the jury, some of the 
better class of citizens began to gather in and soon the hall was 
densely packed. In the mean time some one went to the home of 
Judge Counsellor who lived on his farm near by, adjoining the 
town. 

Judge Counsellor was the father of John. He traced his 
lineage from the French Huguenots down to Virginia, thence into 
Tennessee, he himself having settled in Missouri on the farm upon 
which he then resided when that part of the State was a mere 
wilderness. He had followed the advice of Horace Greeley, going 
West and growing up with the country. And he had inherited that 
virtue of the Huguenots of which a historian wrote that, “Nothing 
and no one ever made them afraid.” From his early association 
in Tennessee where his grandfather had for seven terms been 
Governor, whence he came to Missouri, with what is known as 
Jacksonian, rather than Calhoun, democracy, the judge was opposed 
to any and every thing savoring of “secession.” And while he was 
a slave owner, yet, through the influence of his wife, and doubtless 
other considerations, he always, at least in heart, favored a system 
of gradual emancipation. He was always what was called a law- 
and-order advocate, and no ruffianism on the part of regulators 
before the war ever bulldozed him in the least; neither in subsequent 
years, when the other side got into the saddle, did any bully return¬ 
ing from victory at the front and disposed to make war on women 
and children, and on unarmed men and independent newspaper 
editors, ever go up against the “old Judge” that the bulldozer did 
not fall back like a ball rebounding from a rock. With all this, he 
was as tender-hearted as a woman, and revolted at any oppression 
or outrage committed by the strong against the weak. It made no 
difference whether the strong were on his side or not; he was just 
simply against anybody on any side of any question being outraged. 

The judge, being informed of what was going on in town, 
saddled his celebrated roadster and in a few minutes “was on hand.” 
Just as the jury had been impaneled and sworn to knock the 
“stuffin’ ” out of any abolition preacher found guilty of preaching, 
or being about to pyeach, or who had ever preached insurrection 
among the “niggers,” Judge Counsellor walked quietly into the 
hall and by concert among the law-and-order element was greeted 
by a rousing cheer. From the way the preacher hung his head, 


22 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


he doubtless thought that a fresh legion of regulators had arrived. 
The indictment was read; in different counts the defendant was 
charged with preaching, or with having heretofore preached, or 
with an evil intent to preach in future, insurrection among the 
slaves. The indictment had a second count charging that defendant 
was a Northern Methodist abolition preacher whose presence was 
dangerous to the public welfare generally. Some half-dozen reg¬ 
ulators were called up and sworn as witnesses to testify anything 
that they might have ever seen, heard of, or wished to see or hear 
of, in any wise calculated to convict the defendant of anything 
charged in or out of the indictment. 

The first witness, Regulator Bill, who was also acting sheriff, 
was called and was about to begin being questioned by the prose¬ 
cuting attorney when there was a cry: 

“Counsellor, Judge Counsellor.’’ 

Whereupon Judge Counsellor rose and, bowing to the audience, 
remarked that he was glad to see certain men present, calling them 
by their given names, as was his wont. Among these were about 
one-half of the jury. He then inquired of the “court” whether 
the defendant had counsel. The court stated that this was one of 
those special cases in which the law of the case “forbid the benefit 
of either counsel or clergy!” Judge Counsellor insisted that such 
was once the law, but was so no longer, and if there was any doubt 
about the matter that, inasmuch as this court, being composed of 
everybody in the hall, was a law unto itself, he would like to have 
a vote taken on the question whether the defendant should not have, 
at least, the benefit of counsel; and remarked that he doubted very 
much whether the defendant would desire any benefit from the 
clergy of the town, but he might be benefited by counsel. 

The judge of the drumhead court, seeing the complexion of 
the crowd that was backing Counsellor, concluded, without taking 
a vote, that if defendant had any money to employ counsel he would 
be given two and one-half minutes to do so. Defendant here said 
that he was a stranger and did not know what lawyer he could 
trust with his case; and besides that he had only enough money to 
pay his expenses back home, and asked for time to consult with the 
gentleman who had just spoken whose genial face and open-bosomed 
conduct seemed to have made a favorable impression on the preacher. 
To this the judge impatiently replied that their business must be 
finished in daylight, as they didn’t wish to do anything in the dark, 


IN THE TOILS OF BORDER RUFFIAN REGULATORS. 


23 


and that defendant might have one and one-half minutes sharp to 
consult with counsel about his case. Judge Counsellor said that 
he did not wish to delay the court, and notwithstanding a consulta¬ 
tion with defendant about his case might be of great benefit in 
helping to defend him, yet he knew the jury and that defendant 
would be safe in their hands if he was innocent, and if guilty would 
get the full benefit of the law, which he ought to do. Therefore, 
to save time, he would exercise the right of the high prerogative 
guaranteed to every lawyer to volunteer his services as counsel for 
defendant, with the understanding that if he thought from the 
evidence that defendant was guilty he would desert the case. 

This announcement was greeted with loud cheers; whereupon 
Bill, the regulator, proceeded to testify that he was present in the 
court-house yard this afternoon; that the defendant was the 
“preacher in charge” on that occasion; that “the whole affair had a 
bad smell about itthat the preacher was from north of the Dixon 
line somewhere; that he prayed and preached for insurrection among 
the niggers; that while he was preaching some one in the audience, 
not very loudly, but loud enough to be heard by defendant, said, 

“Thish ’ere fellow is a d-n nigger-loving abolition preacher from 

away up North.” This the defendant no doubt heard—and if he 
didn’t hear it, he could have heard it; and strange to say, that he 
didn’t deny it! 

On being asked by the prosecuting attorney if he was certain 
the defendant could have heard the charge made against him and 
that he didn’t deny it, Bill replied: 

“I am positive and absolutely certain that such charge was 
made, and that the defendant did not stop to deny it, but went on 
with his tan-bark beating.” 

Here the prosecuting attorney smirked with great satisfaction, 
and triumphantly said: 

“If you are certain of what you say, Bill, that is enough for 
all the purposes of this court. So stand aside.” 

“Hold on,” said Counsellor. “I want to ask the witness a few 
questions on cross-examination. You say, Bill, that you were 
present at this meeting where defendant preached this afternoon ?” 

“That is what I said,” replied Bill. “That is, I said I was 
there part of the time.” 

“Were you there when defendant gave out his hymn?” 

“Yes, sir.” 



24 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“What hymn did he give out and sing?” inquired the judge. 
Here Bill got a little stumped and called on by-standers to refresh 
his memory on the point. 

Judge Counsellor said that while it was a little irregular for 
by-standers to be called on to help out a witness, yet for the sake 
of getting at the bottom facts of the case, he would allow any one 
in the audience to refresh Bill's memory as to what hymn the 
preacher used. Bill’s- crowd seemed to be a little short of memory 
as to the names of hymns, and doubtless very short on things 
generally appertaining to church services, and made no response. 
Whereupon a voice from away back in the hall said: 

“The hymn that he sang was one that we have all heard ever 
since we were babies. It was that old hymn beginning, ‘Come, Thou 
Fount of every blessing.’ ” 

The voice that made this announcement was that of John Coun¬ 
sellor. Some one j ust behind him said to him: 

“See here, kid, vou hold your lip, or I’ll make you wish you 
had.” 

Now we propose to give true history as far as possible in this 
story, and giving the true history of the case, we must record that 
John came of a stock of people who always had the courage of their 
convictions, and notwithstanding that his father had so strictly 
enjoined him to say nothing, this insulting remark caused him to 
take his letter out of the church long enough to say to the party 
addressing him: 

“Go to h—1, you infernal coward, or I’ll send you there;” and 
drawing a pistol, such as all university students in those days deemed 
a necessary part of their college equipment, he started for the fellow 
who had insulted him for telling the truth. 

However, by-standers interfered and stopped the racket. This 
was the last occasion, with two exceptions, that John ever carried 
a pistol, saying that he could not trust himself, and was in greater 
fear of himself than of any one else. This altercation was not 
heard at the desk where the evidence was being given, but John’s 
statement as to the name of the hymn was heard; whereupon Judge 
Counsellor asked Bill if that was the name of the hymn sung by 
defendant. To which Bill replied: 

“I can’t swear positive, but I rather calkilate that it were that 
ar same tune.” 


IN THE TOILS OF BORDER RUFFIAN REGULATORS. 


25 


“I didn’t ask you about the tune, but about the hymn,” said 
Judge Counsellor, at which Bill, getting a little excited, said: 

• “What ar the difference between a hymn and a tune? Ain’t 
they, as I have heretofore testified, squivalents? Didn’t I say that 
in geography, or is it in grammar or in geometry, that one thing 
that is squivalent to another thing is, to all intents and purposes of 
the case, the very same as that other thing? You can’t run a hoss 
over me, Judge.” 

• “Oh, no, Bill. You and I are too good friends for me to try 
to run anything over you. We only desire to get at the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth of this case. So I will ask 
you if you heard the prayer of the defendant, and, if so, what did 
lie pray?” 

“Derned if I recollect what he did pray,” said Bill. “I think 
he prayed something about the big fellows in office.” 

“Well, what did he pray about them?” 

“Why, he prayed that they might know enough to give every¬ 
body a show for what’s their own; and somebody in the crowd, or 
rather congregation, remarked out, ‘I suppose he means he wants 
the nigger to have his own liberty.’ At least, he didn’t stop long 
enough ill his prayer to deny this loudly expressed suppersition, 
and the prosecuting attorney says that when a man don’t deny a 
thing the law says he is guilty. At least I am here to swear that 
that ought to be the law in this particular case.” 

“What ought to be the law?” asked Judge Counsellor. 

“Why,” said Bill, “the suppersition that that fellow had as to 
what the preacher meant in his prayer on the aforesaid occasion— 
that ought to be—and I am here to swear is the law of the case.” 

There was a general laugh at Bill, and, seeing how the current 
was moving, Judge Counsellor said to him in a very kindly, 
patronizing way: 

“As a matter of course, Bill, we all know that you are here 
as a witness to swear what the law is, and not to swear what the 
facts are; and no one who knows your pluck, to say nothing of 
your legal learning, would dare to dispute your word as to what the 
law of the case is, so I will only ask you one more question about 
a prominent fact involved in this case, and that is this, did you, as 
a matter of fact, hear the defendant preach at all ?” 

“To that air question,” said Bill, “I will emphatically reply 
that, if you mean by reading something out of ^ book about a sermon 


26 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

on the top of a mountain, that such a thing is preachin’, then I am 
emphatic in swearin’ that I hearn the preacher preach. If such 
reading is not preaching, then I didn’t hear him preach. You can 
take either horn of the dilemmer. But there is one thing that I can 
positively swear, that, the defendant never denied that he was from 
the North and never denied that the suppersition that I have testified 
about wasn’t true, and, so far as I hearn, never denied anything that 
the boys thought he was guilty of. This I do most positively 
swear.” 

“Well,” said Judge Counsellor, “do you swear that the defend¬ 
ant denied that he had said that, had it been left to him, he would 
have preferred to have been born in Heaven than to have been born 
in this part of Missouri?” 

Bill, seeming at last to see a point, got a little “riled,” and 
walked off the witness stand, remarking: 

“I ain’t here to be made the laughing stock of a set of dog¬ 
gone fools.” 

Seeing the fate of Bill, no other witness could be had to take 
the stand. So the prosecuting attorney, just as prosecuting attorneys 
do when they see they have a bad case, had to resort to fiction 
instead of facts, and said that, after Bill’s testimony, which over¬ 
whelmingly established the guilt of the defendant on every charge 
in the indictment, he deemed it a waste of time to introduce further 
testimony, and without asking whether the defendant had any testi¬ 
mony, proceeded to address the jury. He went on to say that of all 
the scourges of famine, pestilence, and war, he would prefer them 
all to the damnable scourge of abolition; that slavery was a divine 
institution; that cotton was, and is, and ever will be King; that a 
man who pronounces cow “ke-ow” ought to be hang on general 
principles ; but that in this case he would only ask for a verdict of 
tar and feathers coupled with riding on a rail. He did this because 
the testimony failed to show how the defendant pronounced cow; 
but, from the clear-cut testimony of our present high sheriff, Billy, 
the chief of regulators, he had no doubt that defendant actually 
believes that slavery is a blotch on the page of freedom, that it 
would be well enough to get rid of it peaceably, if it can be done, 
and forcibly if it must be done. If such fire-brands as the defendant 
are permitted to run at large in these fair borders of Missouri, we 
will soon see a big crpp of treason, crime, stratagem, and arson 
breaking out like sea-ticks and dog-fennel in every direction. “My 


IN THE TOILS OF BORDER RUFFIAN REGULATORS. 


27 


God,” exclaimed the prosecuting attorney in his peroration, “are 
we to stand still and see such abolition agitators, such preachers of 
insurrection, such incarnations of all that is diabolical and devilish, 
such as the testimony shows the defendant to be; are we to stand 
still, I say, and do nothing, and fold our hands and cry sleep, and let 
such fiends bind us hand and foot ? No, gentlemen, we must be 
wide awake, we must be up and at 'em wherever found. And here 
we have one of them in our clutches. Don't let him escape. Be 
true to your regulator pledge, and if, in your supreme wisdom, you 
deem hanging too ennobling for such a pusillanimous sneak as the 
evidence overwhelmingly shows the defendant to be, then give him 
a liberal dose of tar and feathers coupled with riding on a rail 
until he .can never perpetuate his kind. The breed of such ought 
to be stopped. As you have now the power in your hands, do your 
duty, and history will reward you with plaudits for your brave and 
wise verdict of tar and feathers for such a damnable scullion as is 
the defendant.” 

At the conclusion of the prosecuting attorney’s speech, there 
were cries here and there through the hall: “Let’s have no more 
speaking;” “Talk is played out. Now for business!” 

Some of the regulators were afraid to let Judge Counsellor 
speak, for fear of his influence with at least a part of the jury. 
Hence such cries as the above. But the law-and-order element, 
knowing that they had a leader at the front, cried : “Let’s have fair 
play;” “Give even tin enemy show for his white alley“Let’s hear 
both sides.” 

And amid a deafening cry for “Judge Counsellor! Counsellor!! 
Counsellor!!!” the old “Conservator,” as his neighbors called him, 
rose and said: 

“This 1 deem a proper occasion to speak a few earnest words 
to my neighbors. With scarce an exception, you have known me 
and I have known you for many, many years. Those of us that 
are men fear nothing for ourselves so far as man, who can merely 
destroy the body, is concerned; but there are certain things that 
even brave and strong men must fear; for there are things that 
destroy both soul and body, that destroy men, women, and children 
alike in the woes and throes of a bottomless hell. These things 
of which I speak are such things that if men fall on them those who 
so fall will be ground to pieces; and if they fall on men, those upon 
whom they fall are ground to pieces. I allude to the things of the 


28 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


House of 'Wrong on one side and to the things of the House of 
Right on the other. If men fall on wrong things, they will be 
ground up. If they put themselves as an obstruction in the way of 
what is right and of good report, they will be ground to dust and 
ashes. There is no escape from this outcome. Heaven and earth, 
let alone such frail creatures as you and I, my countrymen, may 
come and may go, and may pass away, but the truths that always 
and everywhere make an impassable gulf between right and wrong 
will never pass away. 

. “Now, as to what is right and what is, in the abstract, wrong, 
men ma) r honestly differ. But there are certain things about which 
men who are men cannot differ. One of these things is that the 
Sabbath-day should be devoted to peace and neighborly kindness,— 
to the preaching of the Gospel of peace on earth and good-will 
to all men. And yet here to-day, in a town where the spires of 
five so-called Christian churches point toward heaven, we hear a 
so-called prosecuting attorney preaching the gospel of hate. We 
hear an address from him which, instead of having stones arched 
over its gateways, like those of the Apocalyptic City that comes down 
from Gbd, has such expressions of hate and malice and unkindness 
and unfairness, words that my brother Masons, of whom I see that 
the defendant is one, will see are of such un-squareness, that all will 
conclude at once that this so-called prosecuting attorney has builded 
his address out of stones quarried from the lava beds of hell; and 
that the final and inevitable end of such things is darkness and 
death no sane man can deny. No sane man can deny that like 
produces like, corn produces corn, and cattle bring forth cattle, and 
everything after its kind, ‘whose seed is in itself.’ Are you going 
to put the seal of your approval on such a speech ? Since 1850 you 
have been listening to just such speeches, and things have been 
going from bad to worse, so that we may say that we are in a 
veritable ‘bottomless pit’ in which men are merely ‘gnashing their 
teeth’ on each other. There is no worse hell than this. Shall we 
sink deeper, deeper into it by committing acts of lawlessness such 
as we have witnessed to-day? God Almighty provides that there 
shall remain a remnant in the inner heart of every man, even those 
who make their bed in the- lowest hell, to which he can appeal and 
on which, as a mustard seed however small, he can ultimately build 
up a kingdom of heaven in men. Ever since the passage of the 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854 our Missouri border has been a 


IN THE TOILS OF BORDER RUFFIAN REGULATORS. 


29 


veritable hell. Raids into and from Kansas have been of daily 
occurrence. With a shamelessness that is simply unspeakable have 
men, who heretofore have been regarded as law-abiding citizens, 
committed such acts as ballot-box stuffing, voting in territory where 
they do not live, trying men without the least semblance of law, 
and condemning them, in some cases, to the ignominious disgrace 
of being tarred and feathered, and in other cases to death itself. 
And over and above these things, they have endeavored to suppress 
freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Were these things 
carried on and sanctioned by mere impetuous boys, it would be bad 
enough; but when we see men occupying seats in the United States 
Senate, and even men perched on what should be the highest pinnacle 
on earth—the pulpit—aiding and abetting and publicly advocating 
such lawlessness, we may know that we are in the descending 
grades of a pure and simple bottomless pit, the only way out of 
which is to retrace our steps and cease from evil and learn to do 
good. If we do not retrace our steps, if we do not eschew the evil 
of wrong-doing, such as is advocated here to-day, we will only sink 
deeper and deeper into the hell that we are already in, and its 
borders, or rather its depths, will grow hotter and hotter. War will 
come. War is but hell and the devil let loose for a season. Not 
only will not one of our slaves be left in our homes, but our very 
homes will be burned to the ground. Instead of being paid for our 
slaves, a bottomless debt will be incurred on account of their libera¬ 
tion, which for ages and ages will be a woe for our children and 
children’s children. Our poor and unfortunate negroes will be 
turned loose to shift for themselves, and will only meet the fate of 
the poor Indian. 

“Your abolition of courts of justice, which you are attempting 
to-day, will bring an abolition of all civil courts by drum-head 
court-martial in which your property and your lives will be in the 
same jeopardy that the life of this unfortunate stranger is in your 
midst to-day. In conclusion, my countrymen, however difficult it 
may be in these troublous times to cease from wrong and to do 
right, let us here on this beautiful Sabbath afternoon cease from the 
grievous wrong of charging a stranger in our midst with a serious 
crime, and condemning him on evidence which, to be candid, I will 
say that every man who heard it who is not an idiot knows to be 
the merest burlesque, if not absolute blasphemy. I will not even 
allude to such stuff as evidence; but inasmuch as this is a citizens’ 


30 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


meeting, and each and all should be heard, I move that the liberty 
and the fate of this stranger in our midst be placed in the hands of 
all of us present, instead of in the hands of that part of us called 
a ‘jury/ The creator is greater than the thing created. We created 
the jury. We can abolish it. Hence I move that, in order to end 
this blasphemous mockery of justice, the defendant be turned loose, 
and that we each and all pledge ourselves to stand by him while 
he is visiting our town on legitimate business.” 

The old judge concluded, and voices all over the hall cried out: 
“That’s the thing to do;” “Let the judge put the motion;” “Hurrah 
for law and order.” 

One of the regulators swore he would kill old Counsellor for 
“breaking up this meeting.” “Old Counsellor” stepping up to the 
bully, and opening his bosom, as Benton did to Foote in the United 
States Senate, said: 

“If you have the courage to do so, shoot, and my death will 
do the cause more good than my life.” 

But the crowd cried wildly to put the regulator out and to “put 
the motion.” 

The motion was put and about everybody in the hall, including 
all the jury, voted for it; and thus an attempted tragedy ended in 
a farc<j. 

Why did not all the lynching and lawlessness that disgraced 
the Missouri border in the latter part of the “fifties” thus end? 
There is no doubt that a great majority of the people were opposed 
to lawlessness, and yet the lawlessness went on. The reason was 
that the disorderly element was insolent and organized; and that 
those who opposed lawlessness were disorganized. There was 
scarcely a crime committed against the law by the mob on the Mis¬ 
souri border that could not have been prevented by having a bold 
leader to head the law-and-order element. Naturally these leaders 
ought to be the public officials. If anything is worthy of the death 
penalty, there should be such a penalty attached to the failure of 
every judge and every sheriff and every peace officer to do all things 
possible, even to the sacrificing of his own life to put down bulldozers 
and self-constituted regulators. 

Before dismissing this part of the story, we will say that Judge 
Counsellor in after years had a hotter experience than in this case 
with the friends of the side of things that the Iowa brother was 
supposed to be on, which will be related in due time. 


IN THE TOILS OF BORDER RUFFIAN REGULATORS. 


31 


The defendant was invited to the home of Judge Counsellor; 
but, as the mayor of the city, who was the keeper of the leading 
hotel of the town, pressed the defendant to stay at his hotel free 
of charge, he went with the mayor, which perhaps*■was well enough; 
as there Avere desperate men about all these towns in those times. 

Young John Counsellor was elated at the outcome, and thought 
he would gallop up and tell Em about the matter. But as he rode 
up to the gate of the parsonage, the Rev. Mr. McNal addressed 
him so roughly that his warm feeling for Em somewhat chilled, and 
he rode on home. 


CHAPTER III. 


A FIRESIDE TALK AT JOHN’S HOME. 


John Proclaims the Lex Talionis—His Mother’s Quiver Not Full of 
Argument, But Her Heart All Right—The Judge Comes to Her Aid— 
The Argument That “Preachers” Preach War—Even University Students 
Not In It With the “Amazons”—Echo Answers, “What Difference Be¬ 
tween Murder in Retail and Murder by Wholesale’’—Mars and the Min¬ 
istry—“Em” Might Be a Red-painted Indian Princess—John Getting in 
the Boat with the Visiting Preacher—Didn’t See “Em,” But Met Her 
“Pap”—John Affected at the Thought That His Mother Is “Nearer Kin 
to an Angel” Than to a War-painted Parson. 


Before John’s arrival at home, his father had told his mother 
of the transactions of the day and of the happy outcome; and when 
John came in looking wounded his mother was surprised and 
asked him what was the matter. Now, with quite young people 
their love affairs are a thing to be kept secret as far as possible. 
So instead of at first letting his mother know about the rebuff 
which he had received at the parsonage gate, which was the real 
cause of his sadness, he told her of the incident at the hall in 
which he “pulled a pistol on a fellow.” 

Now, this also saddened his mother. The father, notwith¬ 
standing his signal victory at the trial of the preacher over lawless¬ 
ness and the congratulations he had received on all hands for his 
effective speech, was also sad. His sadness was occasioned by the 
gloomy outlook for his country. He had been a public leader, 
acquainted with leading men both North and South, and knew the 
majority of them were mere politicians who ran with their party 
instead of leading it. He knew the violence of men on both sides. 
He knew that violence bred violence as disease breeds disease. 
What he had said in his speech he felt and knew to be true. Hence 
he was sad. 


(32) 





A FIRESIDE TALK AT JOHN'S HOME. 


33 


A superficial observer might suppose that the Counsellors’ 
being sad was a proof that they were in the wrong. If so, then 
Christ was in the wrong, for He was so notedly sad as to be called 
a “Man of Sorrows.” Oh, no! If there is a mother who loves 
her son, and who at the same time understands the law of vengeance, 
as Mrs. Counsellor did, nothing pains her more than the seeming 
disposition of that loved son to take vengeance into his own hands. 
And what is stronger proof of the nobleness of a boy’s character 
than to have a genuine affection for a sweetheart, and be hurt to 
the quick when anything touches such affection? Such boys when 
they grow to be men will never figure in divorce courts. Neither 
will their sweethearts, if such boys marry them. The love of one 
man for one woman, and one woman for one man, is the central 
source of the highest and holiest of all loves; because a man under 
the direct counsel of the “only wise God, our Saviour,” is com¬ 
manded to leave even father and mother for his wife. 

There can be no happiness in Heaven itself without this great 
central love; for it is not good for man to be alone, either in this 
world or in any other world where the same God reigns who spoke 
the above great truth that will never pass away. 

As to Judge Counsellor, whose patriotism outweighed his 
partvism, and even his personalism, what could sadden such a man 
more than to see his country about to be convulsed and his neighbors 
scattered and unable to avert the coming catastrophe ? Men of his 
type will always do as did Judge Counsellor when that afternoon 
he opened his bosom to the assassin’s dagger. The sadness of 
the righteous makes them brave beyond measure; and nearly even 
brave man is sad when in the presence of wrongs he cannot right, 
or when confronting evils that he sees no way of remedying, except 
perhaps by laying down his life. Even then the evil remains, but 
he goes forever away from it. , 

When John told his mother of the pistol affair, she said: 

“Oh, John! John! How often have I told you of the evil of 
carrying concealed weapons; and how often have you promised me 
not to do so?” 

“Yes, mamma, ves,” replied John; “but the truth is this, 
that I have never been convinced that it is wrong for any one 
to defend himself; and how can a boy like me defend himself 
against such big bullies as the one that insulted me to-day? 
How can a weak man defend himself against a strong one without 


34 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


having a pistol for an ‘equalizer/ as we college boys say? Now, 
you know I love you, mamma, and would die to do anything that 
I thought right; but I couldn’t look Em in the face if I should 
permit some bully to beat me up! If I should ever marry and 
have little children, by Jove, I don’t see how I could go home with 
my nose mashed or my eye blackened without telling them, ‘I slew 
the brute that did this/ ” 

John’s mother was like many a good woman, who has the 
perception that sees the way of holiness as a horse sees his way 
out of the wilderness in the dark and errs not, though she can’t 
give a reason for it. Yet she knows that she is right, just the same 
as she knows that her eyes see and her hand feels and her ear 
hears. And while she was more convinced than ever that she was 
right in her idea that vengeance is God’s and not man’s, and that 
her husband did a nobler act in baring his bosom to a desperado 
than John did in turning desperado and attacking a'fellow-being 
with a deadly weapon, yet she was somewhat staggered by John’s 
appeal. 

John, seeing his advantage, proceeded, 

“Why, mamma, don’t all the preachers preach war and prove 
it from the Bible? Are all the preachers wrong? Haven’t you 
a thousand times told me to love and obey the preacher? Because 
old Parson McNal is a preacher, I think you told me I ought to 
love and respect him more than I do his daughter Em. And I am 
sure the old parson would shoot a Northern Methodist as quick 
as he would a mad dog. In fact, I heard him say after the preacher 
left his house Saturday afternoon, ‘I ought to have mashed the old 
serpent’s head with my walking stick.' Now, what is the difference 
between a stick and a pistol if one kills the same as another? 
Aren’t women generally right ? And about all our Southern women 
are talking about chivalry and singing war songs. In fact, down 
about the University, a student is hardly respected by the girls unless 
he is always talking about killing Yankees and wanting war to come 
so he can have a good chance to kill on the wholesale. What’s 
the difference between killing men by wholesale and by retail ?” 

•Here John’s father, who never permitted his wife to be crowded, 
said: 

“John, your mother is right and you are wrong; but in your 
present state of mind, and I might say at your present immature 
age, you have eyes, but cannot see what your mother sees so 


35 


A FIRESIDE TALK AT JOHN’S HOME. 

clearly. It took her some forty years to go on to the perfection 
of seeing things as they are, instead of seeing things as an un¬ 
regenerate heart sees them to be. You have a great deal to learn, 
my boy. So simply lay up in your memory what your mother says, 
and if you: are honest, which I think you are, you will be led into 
seeing in the future just as your mother sees now.” 

Here Mrs. Counsellor, with tears, added: 

“Oh, John, I have a thorough conviction that one day you will 
not only see as I do, but will be able to give a reason for it,—a 
reason that will confound your war preachers and make ashamed 
your University girls who paint and powder like Indians in war 
dress! I know this, I know this, for God somehow tells me so,— 
tells me that He will lead you into the right by a way that you know 
not of. If it were not for this assurance, I really could not live. 
In the mean time, I can only pray for God to protect you,—to keep 
you from danger ; yes, yes, that ‘He will give his angels charge over 
thee to keep thee in all thv ways and to bear thee up in their hands, 
lest thou dash thy foot against a stone,’—such stones as your father 
told me that he spoke to the people about.” 

Sure enough, in after years, John in his “going through the 
great regeneration” did come more fully than even his mother into 
all of the deep things found in the sayings of Christ in his Sermon 
on the Mount. But this was only when he had been emancipated 
from the bondage of ecclesiasticism and had been born into the 
liberty and life of a Christian. Forty years from that time John 
had occasion to remember his mother’s words. 

Now, it was just such blusterade as that used by this young 
sophomore to overcome his mother,—it was just such false reason¬ 
ing and use of false fire that enabled, a few years afterward, the 
impetuous politicians of the South to silence the better judgment 
of the better part of the people and take up the cudgels of vengeance 
by which they perished; for heaven and earth may pass away, but 
the principle will never pass away that he that taketh up the 
sword will by the sword perish. In {he South there was as great 
a difference between those who wanted war and those who opposed 
it as there was between the hot-headed sophomore and his mother 
about whom the spheres of the angels were already gathering. The 
one was fired by the inbreathing of the hell of war, while the other 
heard the whisperings of the angels in the heavenly home of the 
Prince of Peace. 


36 JOHN counsellor’s evolution. 

If the preachers of that day had been engaged in preaching 
Christ instead of Mars, John’s mother perhaps might have learned 
from her pastor enough to have answered John and saved him 
from a good many troubles and bitter experiences in learning what 
she saw but could not explain. People, like Paul, are often “caught 
up” into heavens of truth that they are not able to couch in language, 
yet see plainly themselves. 

The fact is, however, that about four-fifths of the preachers 
of that day, and many at this, would and do side with the young 
barbarian as against his mother. But the reader will see the out¬ 
come of the mother’s faith in the history of the years afterward 
recorded in John’s book of life. 

John dismissed this part of the subject, as youth is ever prone 
to do, with a jocular remark to his mother. 

“I tell you, mamma, if Em is to be one of the angels that you 
pray to take charge of me, and I am sort of praying that way 
myself, then I think that, as the Bible says, there will be even war 
in Heaven; because Em is getting to be a regular little ‘war rebel.’ ” 

To this Mrs. Counsellor replied: “Emily is too good ever to 
become a painted Indian princess, dancing and shrieking around 
the camp-fires in the vulgar strides of a war dance.” 

John replied that she was bound to be warlike if she obeyed 
her reverend father. To this Mrs. Counsellor said: 

“If necessary to keep Emily from falling away from her present 
gentleness of spirit, the Lord will take her to Heaven.” 

The subject of John’s reception at the parsonage gate then 
came up by John’s saying : * 

“You know, mamma, what I told you of the rough reception 
of the Northern Methodist preacher at the parsonage yesterday 
afternoon. I did not think then, when I was with Em in the 
parlor, that after the lapse of about twenty-four hours I was to 
tread pretty closely in the footsteps of the preacher. But there 
is no telling what this infernal rage about the niggers, and Kansas, 
and secession, and Northern and Southern Methodists won’t do.” 

“Well, now, John, what in the world took place between you 
and Emily ?”* asked his mother. 

“Oh, nothing between me and Em. I didn’t see her any more 
than the Northern preacher saw inside the church he wanted to 
preach in. I met her pap at the gate. In fact, old Brother Mac 


A FIRESIDE TALK AT JOHN’S HOME. 


37 


halted me a little further off from the house than he did the preacher. 
He did not let me get nearer than the yard gate, while he let the 
preacher get up to the porch.” 

“Pshaw, John, you are surely joking replied his mother. 
“Brother McNal is our pastor, and surely one of our best friends. 
He has eaten so many times at our table, and he knows how much 
I think of him; he couldn't possibly treat any of our family except 
with the greatest kindness. John, the truth is that since you went 
to the University you are too sensitive, or perhaps I might say too 
high-strung, which is much worse. You have just taken offense 
when none was intended.” 

t 

“Suppose Mr. McNal should say to me as I rode up to his • 
gate, ‘Young kid, does your mother know what little dirty work 
you have been at this afternoon in trying to keep a sneaking 
abolition preacher from getting his dues? After this, your sort 
had better ride on by this house and not alight! Good evening.’ ” 

“Oh, John,” replied his mother, “if Brother McNal said that, 
he was just joking, just passing off a little pleasantry. You must 
learn to avoid evil surmising, or at least have a little of that charity 
that hopes all things for the best. You must hope, at least, that 
Brother McNal didn’t mean what he said.” 

“Suppose,” replied the son, “that Brother McNal did feel what 
he said, what difference does it make whether he meant it or not? 
You say that like produces like; and the way he looked and the way 
he spoke and the way he acted all went to show that he felt what 
he said to me, whether he meant it or not. At least, I felt it so 
keenly that I felt like taking my letter out of the church long 
enough to give him a genteel cussing. Then I thought of Em, and 
didn’t do anything but pull my freight on down the road. The truth 
is, mamma, I believe that my religion needs a little mending, 
for even Em says that I am an Israelite in whom there is a little 
too much of Yankee guile. I do not think Em meant what she 
said, so I didn’t get mad at her. This shows that I think that Em 
is better than the preachers. I guess this is on your idea of ‘like 
producing like,’ because I think Em likes me a little more than her 
father, the preacher, does. If religion is love, then I am sure Em 
and I have a good deal more of a case of it than even the preachers. 
In truth, the Lord and preachers, the way the preachers are preach¬ 
ing him up, don’t cut much ice in my religion. But I am in hopes 
that some day I will be like you, with love to all and malice to none.” 


38 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Something like a sob escaped from the boy, and he exclaimed:: 

“Oh, mamma, something tells me that you are too good for this 
world with its painted priests and whited sepulchres, and even with 
a son who is not worthy to untie your shoes. Not only this, but 
something tells me, and I can’t get over it, that you would be/ more 
at home with the angels than with such preachers as Brother McNal, 
—yes, be more at home with the angels than with many of your 
Methodist sisters who are full of war, full of strife, and full of hate 
against everybody that doesn’t believe in the divinity of slavery, as 
our University president, Shannon, says in his lectures. Why, some 
, of these sisters have quit coming to see you because they say that 
papa is an old Tom Benton Free Soiler. What that is, I hardly 
know, but it seems to be an awful crime. Yes, yes, my own dear,, 
dear mamma, I feel that the angels are going to take you to live 
with them, because the Bible says that all people are gathered 
together with their kind. Help me to shake off this feeling that you. 
are going away, even if it is to live with the angels!” 

Some forty years after this, John had a similar presentiment 
about another woman who perhaps exerted a greater influence on 
his life than did even his mother. 

In order to shake off the gloom that seemed to be gatherings 
like a musty, cloudy day in December, Mrs. Counsellor said: 

“John, go and tell Martha to get some fat chickens and a turkey 
off of the roost and put them in the coop, and you must go to town 
to-morrow and tell Brother McNal that I. want him and his whole 
family to come out Thursday and take dinner and spend the day 
with us. Tell him that we will send the carriage to bring them 
out and carry them back, unless Sister McNal will bring her knitting 
and stay over until Sunday.” 

“I will tell you, mamma,” said John, “I think we’d better write 
all this down in a letter, for fear Brother McNal will not let me 
get near enough to the parsonage to tell it to him viva voce 

“Oh, no, John, a letter looks too formal,” said his mother. “If 
you think best, you can see Brother McNal up town, or as he goes 
to the post-office every afternoon, you can go to the parsonage while 
he is out and tell Sister McNal or Emily. I know that is an argu¬ 
ment you can’t object to.” 

John, very naturally, did not object to this, and after family 
prayers all retired with a kind of hurt-in-heart feeling. 


A FIRESIDE TALK AT JOHN’S HOME. 


39 


Mrs. Counsellor’s “weakness of having a heart” was very mani¬ 
fest in her having such great faith in preachers. Perhaps it 
was because of this common susceptibility that the Christ abol¬ 
ished the whole priesthood scheme and declared that there should 
be no masters, no fathers, no overbearing fulers in His Church, 
but that all should be brethren, and the greatest should be the one 
who did the most work for others. Christ had seen enough of the 
priests, and saw still more when they incited the cry, “Crucify Him l 
Crucify Him! Turn Barabbas loose!” 


CHAPTER IV. 


SAMPLE OF “FIRST MONDAY” IN BORDER RUFFIAN DOM. 


The Parsons In Preferred Seats—“The Way To Do a Thing, Is To 
Do It”—How To Make Kansas a Slave State—The “Voting Industry”-— 
A Kansas Voting Precinct Goes Ten to One For “Good Government” 
As Viewed on the Border Ruffian Side—A Sample Dispatch From the 
Front—Reid, Buford, and Others in the Saddle—A Preacher Kills One of 
the John Brown Boys—General Stringham Praises the President and 
Secretary of Waf, Jefferson Davis—Judge Counsellor’s Appeal to the 
War-Painted Preachers—John Sees and “Seals” Things With Em—Em 
Stands Up for the Counsellors and Looks Up to the Stars. 


On Monday afternoon John saddled his horse and went up to 
town, having as his principal mission to deliver the invitation to 
the preacher’s family to spend a day at his father’s house. 

As usual on first days of circuit court, the whole country seemed 
to be in town. Public speaking, instead of. court, was the order 
of the day. Some noted man whose mission was “to fire the 
Southern heart” was the orator on this occasion. As I now call to 
mind, he was Senator Emerald, who lived over on the Mississippi 
River side of the State. Just as John entered the large court-room 
where the speaking was going on, he saw Mr. McNal and the 
presiding elder, Prottsley, occupying preferred seats on the speakers’ 
rostrum. This was just what John wanted, as he would have, as 
he thought, fair sailing at the parsonage for delivering his invitation 
to dinner. But as he was about to turn to the door to leave, his 
attention was called to what the speaker, who was urging upon the 
people the necessity of making Kansas a slave-holding State, was 
saying. He had just shouted out: 

“The way to do a thing is to do it.” 

And some one just at John’s sidfe cried out: “How are you 
going to do it?” 

To which the senator replied : “Organize in every county along 
the border a company of at least one hundred men. Call them 

(40) 





SAMPLE OF FIRST MONDAY IN BORDER RUFFIANDOM. 


41 


Minute Men, or Vigilantes, or any other name that implies readiness 
to do what is to be done. The thing to be done is to vote, and, if 
necessary, to shoot as you vote.’’ 

Here a great hip-hurrah took place, in the confused noise of 
which there could be heard a shriek in alto: 

“Hurrah for Hell !” 

Which John thought was strange language to be used in the 
presence of preachers. The speaker proceeded: 

“At each election in Kansas, especially at elections where a 
constitution is to be voted on, let one of the companies go to each 
county along the Kansas border and take charge of a precinct 
voting place, and, under a law that a legislature elected by us boys 
has made for that special purpose, choose your own election officers, 
and proceed to vote. Vote early and vote late; and vote often! 
And be sure to take some City Directory, each taking a different 
one, so as not to get the same name appearing in the poll books 
of more than one voting place; for we must be honest and—” 

Here everybody laughed outright, including the preachers. 

“At the last election a little precinct called Oxford, where 
there were only one hundred and sixty bona fide voters, polled a 
vote of sixteen hundred and sent it up in the ‘returns/ Yes, this 
little Bethlehem of Oxford as our preachers would say turned the 
election. I merely mention this to encourage the boys to see what 
profit there is in the ‘voting industry/ These preachers here know 
how one can be made a thousand and two made ten thousand, don’t 
you, brethren?” (pointing to clergymen on the stand, some of whom 
smiled and others nodded assent). 

Here a messenger from “the front,” as Kansas was called, 
entered the room and handed the speaker a message in writing, 
which he read as follows: 


Near Osawatomie, Kan., Aug. 30, 1856. 

To Whom It May . Concern, Greeting: 

The gallant Reid, assisted by Titus, Buford, et al., to-day attacked, 
sacked, and burned Osawatomie, routing John Brown and getting the 
scalp of one of his sons. It is thought Bro. Rev. White Martin has the 
honor*of getting young Brown’s scalp. Send more recruits, for hell and 
high water are all about us. (Signed) Sheriff Jones. 

The reading of this message from the front was received with 
“prolonged applause,” in which some one proposed: “Three cheers 


42 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


and a tiger for Rev. White Martin, the David that got away with 
the Philistine Brown Goliah!” which went through with a whoop 
hurrah. 

At the time it was said that Mr. McNal made this David and 
Goliah motion, but in after years this was denied. It was afterward 
known that the son of John .Brown killed at Osawatomie was 
Frederick Brown, the one who bitterly remonstrated with his father 
for killing, on May 27, 1856, the three Doyles, “Dutch Henry,'’ and 
Allen Wilkinson, who were proslavery settlers on Pottawatomie 
Creek in Kansas. Seemingly it is ever thus,—the innocent suffering 
for the guilty. 

The distinguished senator closed by declaring that some this 
.side of the river “free silers” needed attention, and by innuendo 
intimated that a ride on a rail might be good medicine for such 
people as defenders of “Northern preachers of insurrection,” allud¬ 
ing to Judge Counsellor. The senator, somewhat weakened by 
excess of “toddy” to which he was addicted, now gave way to a 
florid looking gentleman who was introduced as “General Benjamin 
Franklin Stringham.” The general began by saying: 

“I am just from Washington, and can say that the President 
and his Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, both personally assured 
me that they were in deep sympathy and would do everything 
officially that they could to favor our cause in Kansas. Mr. Davis 
expressed himself as greatly disappointed in the action of Governors 
Reeder and Shannon, appointees of Pierce. But he says that Shan¬ 
non will be displaced at once and a man appointed that we pro¬ 
slavery people can rely upon. I will say for the encouragement of 
our boys that organization and action will give us Kansas. All 
recollect what effective work was done by a few thousand of us at 
the election of the territorial legislature known as the Shawnee 
Mission Legislature. Through this legislature we have disfranchised 
the John Brownites; through it we got Reeder removed; through 
it we have established slavery, de facto at least, in Kansas. We 
must be prepared at every election to take charge of as many election 
precincts in Kansas as will be necessary to preserve what work we 
have already done. Atchison, Burns, Whitefield, and Sheriff Jones,^ 
with such right bowers as Reed, Titus, Buford, Judge Lecompte, 
Jeff Davis, and others, will do the work to be done if we of Missouri 
will hold up their hands.” 

Plere a voice inquired : “Tell 11s how we can hold their hands up.” 


SAMPLE OF FIRST MONDAY IN BORDER RUFFIANDOM. 


43 


To this General Stringham replied: 

“By going over and taking possession of the promised land, 
and by voting and shooting as you vote, as Senator Emerald said. 
1 think I can appeal to my preacher brethren here for Bible authority 
for the shooting of the heathen at least. I don’t think that there 
was much voting done by our old Bible friends; but they were 
“long” on killing out the heathen. We will be a little more tender 
than they were. We will content ourselves with going over the 
River Jordan and voting early and voting late and voting often, as 
our distinguished senator has told you.” 

Three cheers and a tiger were proposed for the senator who 
had said that “the way to do a thing was to do it,” but who was 
now drunk. Then some one announced that news had come that 
• Governor Shannon, who had turned traitor to the proslavery cause, 
would be coming down the Missouri River soon, and, if necessary 
as an example, ought to be given a coat of tar and feathers such 
as the Vigilantes gave lawyer Phillips at Leavenworth a few days 
ago. 

Old Judge Counsellor, having heard of the threats that had been 
made by the senator, pushed his way through the crowd to the 
speakers’ stand. The old judge had not yet “gone on to” that point 
of Christian grace that regards carnal weapons as being under all 
circumstances out of season. Everybody knew him to be “dead 
game.” Besides this, he had a near relative bv marriage, Col. R—, 
of the capital city, who was at his side. Col. R— had, in fact, told 
him of the threat made by the senator in his speech, and had 
proposed to go up and see about it. Otherwise, perhaps Judge 
Counsellor would not have noticed the matter. Col. R— was an 
old line Kentuckian by blood and reared in Missouri. He was an 
out-spoken antislavery man, supporting Fremont for President, and 
was not excelled by old Cash Clay himself in “covering the ground 
lie stood on." 

Some of the crowd, seeing Judge Counsellor and Col. R— 
coming into the court-house yard, concluded that the senator, who 
was drunk, had better be taken to the hotel, ostensibly for “repairs.” 
For all knew that if he remained there would be something a little 
more serious than fun and a flurry of feathers. 

At the speakers’ stand Judge Counsellor was greeted with jeers 
and hisses by the claquers of “On to Kansas.” On the other hand, 
a rousing cheer went up from all parts of the room mingled with 
such whoops as: 


44 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


“Go to ’um, Judge.” 

“We are here at your back.” 

Now if there is anything to stir men’s blood, such cries will 
stir it. But Judge Counsellor never let his brain become a “hot 
box.” He was always cool and considerate. (Forty-four years 
after that day, in Texas, one of his blood descendants who had his 
ancestor’s courage, but not his considerateness, single-handed and 
unarmed, went into the presence of three armed ruffians who had 
invaded his editorial sanctum, and in this unequal contest was 
stabbed to death with a Spanish dagger in the back.) 

The Judge opened his speech by saying: 

“For a long lifetime, fellow citizens, I have lived among you. I 
expect to die among you. From what I have heard, it may be 
that I shall be carried out of here a dead man to the home where 
my wife is anxious about my return. If so, it is not of my seeking, 
nor of my shunning. Let it be so, if my God and your God sees 
the time has come.” 

Here he asked whether Senator Emerald was present. Being 
informed that he was not, he calmly remarked: 

“I never quarrel with nor make an attack on an absent man.” 

He then went on to say, among many other things: 

“I will say to my countrymen that, if such advice as that given 
from this stand to-day is followed out, war will result; and in case 
of war that, within four years after the firing of the first gun, the 
tramp of what is now called John Brown’s legions will be heard in 
the halls of every Southern capital, and slavery will pass away in 
a great carnival of blood and fire. I see present neighbors whom 
I have for years met daily, on their adjoining farms, in their offices, 
in their work-shops, and in their stores. When the war comes, 
from every farm, from offices, from shops and stalls many of you 
will go forth, never to return. Your wives and your children will 
sit around vacant firesides, will look out of the windows of your 
houses, will often go to the door looking for your return. Oh, my 
countrymen, do not let your hearts be fired by inflammatory appeals 
to your prejudices and your passions. Those prejudices of mind 
and passions of heart are but the worms that ever grow and never 
die, the fires that ever rage into outbursting flame.” 

Turning to some half-dozen preachers who occupied prominent 
seats on the speakers’ stand, and addressing them with uplifted 
hands and solemn voice, he said: 


SAMPLE OF FIRST MONDAY IN BORDER RUFFIANDOM. 


45 


“O men of the clergy, what is your mission ? Is it to give the 
people a serpent when they call for meat? To give them stones 
when they call for bread? Is your mission to give to the youths 
of the land spears instead of pruning-hooks, and swords instead of 
plowshares? Is it your mission to teach our mothers and our wives 
and daughters to tune their voices to chants around the altar of 
Mars ? Shall bride-grooms turn from scenting the myrtle and the 
olive and the orange that linger about brides and bridal chambers 
to fierce war-horses pawing the earth and with dilated nostrils 
snuffing the sulphur of battlefields afar off; and when the battle- 
held is trampled over after battle, to sicken at the stench of the 
bloated bodies of horse and rider rotting in the dust together? 

“Is it your mission to teach our girls to adorn themselves in 
robes of meekness and gentleness such as become the home as well 
as the heart of woman, to say nothing of the followers of the Prince 
of Peace? or to bedeck and bespangle themselves in the bloody 
colors of the war-gods? Is it your mission, O men of the clergy, 
to reverse the dial of time, and cause the fathers and mothers of this 
the nineteenth century to be found, like the Carthaginian barbarians, 
dedicating their children to Baals of eternal Hate? Or is it your 
mission to baptize our children into the name and nature of Him 
who is eternal Love? Is war, with its ‘Delenda Est,’ your calling? 
Or are you to join with the angels in the grand acclaim of ‘Peace 
on earth and good will to all men V Were the clergy of this country 
united for peace and reasoning together, in place of war and fighting 
each other, as they seem to be, then would the Prince of Peace over¬ 
come Mars in an overwhelming victory of gladness and joy; and the 
hoarse baying of blood-hounds would be hushed by the soft sounds 
of a happy husbandry. You, gentlemen of the clergy, decide this 
question of life and death for your people. Joy be unto you if you 
decide for what is right! And woe be unto you and your people if 
you choose what is wrong!” 

One of the clergy here essayed to reply, but the usual over¬ 
whelming sympathy of the people for the sentiments uttered by the 
old judge when it had a chance to express itself, so uttered itself 
against-preachers running party politics and whooping up war, that 
the clerical gentleman soon subsided from his effort to show that 
the Prince of Peace at times indulged in fire and sword practice as 
well as in the use of oil and balms of Gilead. As a matter of course, 
this belated and benighted advocate of fire and sword by Christ 


46 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


had never, and has not to this date, learned the difference between 
the “letter that kills and the spirit that makes alive/'—not knowing* 
that the enemies of which Christ spoke, who were to be destroyed 
root and branch, were spiritual enemies, such as hate, lust, strife, 
which are to be found in every man’s heart or individual household. 
War by fire and sword is justified by a sensual and materialistic 
priesthood simply because they do not spiritually discern the Script¬ 
ures. 

As usual, this first Monday of court speaking ended in the 
peaceable and the warlike elements getting farther apart. In the 
mean time John had gone over to the parsonage, where fortunately 
no one was at home but Em. John delivered his message to her; 
and after he and Em had agreed, and sealed the agreement as 
sweethearts often seal their vows, they promised “not to talk 
politics," and John left for home. 

At the supper table Emily delivered the invitation of Mrs. 
Counsellor for all the family to spend the day at her house. On 
hearing of this, Brother McNal, who was yet “hot under the collar" 
from the genteel roasting that Judge Counsellor had given him at 
the speaking, said: 

“We will not go. It will not do to encourage such people as the 
Counsellors." 

Both his wife and daughter exclaimed: 

“Oh, papa, don't talk so." 

“Oh, papa," said Emily, “you know the Counsellors have always, 
been not onlV good members of our church, but good friends of us 
all. How many times have we eaten at their table? How many 
bushels and bushels of apples have they sent us? How many times 
have they placed their carriage at our disposal to visit in the country ? 
Oh, what have they not done of the things that people that love 
each other ought to do? And besides, you know that everybody 
that knows Mrs. Counsellor knows that she is not only an old-time 
Virginia lady, but is a sure enough Christian. And yet, because 
this family don’t agree with some of us in politics, you say that 
we must not countenance them! If we can’t countenance them, 
who can we countenance ? Oh, I wish that that old Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill had never been heard of. I wish that all the negroes 
were in Africa, or somewhere else." 


SAMPLE OF FIRST MONDAY IN BORDER RUFFIANDOM. 


47 


Here Em jumped up from the table and ran out of the dining¬ 
room into the yard, and sitting on the grass looked up to the stars 
in the heaven's. She recalled this time in after years, when she was 
not looking upward but downward into the horrible pit of war r 
and sniffing of its deadly, intoxicating fumes to the degree of 
delirium when she did not have so tender a regard for at least some 
of the Counsellors as she then had. But Em’s madness was not like 
her goodness of heart, “unto everlasting.” 

On further consideration Mr. McNal and his wife decided to go 
to the dinner at the Counsellors. 


CHAPTER V. 


DINNER AT “PREACHERS' HOME.” 


The Preacher Comes Late to Dinner—The Coining of a Woman s 
Heart Blood to Keep Life Current—John Inclined to Take His Letter 
Out of the Church Temporarily for “Cussin’ ” Exercises—The Intoler¬ 
ance of a Preacher an Explanation of How Slavery is the Foundation- 
Stone by Which Freedom is Supported—Bob Toombs’ Call of the Roll of 
Slaves at Bunker Hill is Commended—A Strong Man Staggered in Heart 
—The Twin Whited Sepulchres. 


The day that the preacher’s family was to spend at the hospitable 
home of the Counsellors was one of those lovely Indian Summer 
days for which September is noted in the Missouri climate. The 
very sunshine seemed so mellow that it could be plumped like a 
melon when testing its ripeness. The bees on the ripening fruit, 
the birds about the trees full of berries, the beasts in the meadows, 
all reveled in the delight of life. A year from that day Mrs. 
Counsellor was to leave the earthly and enter the heavenly life, and 
she was ripening for the change of worlds. God on his part does 
all things meet and good. But, alas, man often mars the good things 
ordained of God. This indescribably mellow, sunshiny, Indian 
Summer day was ordained of God; but some men who sported in 
its glad light like swimmers on the bosom of a soft-flowing river, 
might yet darken its luster and muddy its waters. 

Early in the morning the family carriage, that would seat the 
driver and three others, was dispatched to the parsonage. John had 
a friendly spat with the old family coachman as to who should drive 
it, which was settled by Mrs. Counsellor, contrary to her old 
, Virginia idea of things, deciding that Sim, the regular driver, should 
help the cook in cleaning chickens and peeling fruit, and John should 
do the driving. 

Now, John had never been very aristocratically inclined, not¬ 
withstanding his mother was a Virginian and his father’s ancestors 
had been governors, senators, and generals in America and noblemen 

(48) 





DINNER AT PREACHERS' HOME. 


49 


among the Huguenots in France. John himself, with the honors of 
the class, had passed through the University, that most dangerous of 
all places calculated to give ambitious youth the “big head;” and 
he bade fair to carry off the sweepstake blue-ribbon honor in the 
ring of all entries. (Which he did, although the youngest of the 
graduating class.) Yet John was boylike and impetuous. Forty- 
four years after this his wife called him her “big little boy,” and he 
called his wife “baby.” During the days of his college life, in 
vacations at home he vied with the plantation ox-driver in driving 
the “four yoke of oxen team,” and with the family carriage driver 
and with all the negro boys of his size in cutting wood, shocking 
hay, and “cutting up corn,” and we might add excelled in all 
miscellaneous “cutting up” about swimming holes in the creek and 
coon hunts and similar things. He was in no sense of the word 
a little Lord Fauntleroy; but a brave and generous-hearted boy. 
So he was delighted to drive the carriage to town for the preacher’s 
family; not, perhaps, because he felt that his mission was to minister 
rather than be ministered to; for he could never figure out a balanced 
statement as to how the account of ministration by and ministration 
to stood when a sweetheart, or in after days a wife, was a factor 
in the figuring. 

Driving up to the parsonage gate, no one ran out to the gate to 
meet him, as is usual in Southern home life. This, however, did 
not cool his ardor of feeling. To the house he went and knocked 
at the door, which knock was answered by Emily, who invited him in, 
telling him that her father was up town and would be back directly. 
This at first did not displease John, as he was enjoying the company 
of about all of the family that he cared much about. But when 
ten o’clock came and then eleven, and yet Brother McNal had not 
come, he began to think of his mother’s dinner and how she never 
wanted people to come merely to take dinner, but to bring their 
knitting and have a long good old fireside talk. These thoughts 
made John a little nervous. Besides, Sister McNal had as yet failed 
to come into the room where he was. It was evident that there 
was some concert of, action to go as late and leave as early as 
possible. About half-past eleven Mr. McNal sauntered leisurely 
in at the front gate, and came into the parlor where Em and John 
were sitting, making some inconsequent remark that grated harshly 
on John’s feelings, so much so that he afterward told his father that 
he felt inclined “to cuss the old scoundrel out, for that is all he is.” 


50 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


It must be called to mind that we are not writing romance, but 
actual history. Were this not the case, we might perhaps paint our 
hero as a Puritan or other species of prim Presbyterian precisionist. 
But it is better that real history be written, for the reason that any 
who may desire to start the life of regeneration may not be dis¬ 
couraged by not being perfect at the initial step of the new life; 
but may rather be encouraged by finding a person who is “standing 
afar off" from places in the temple where the Pharisees play their 
phylacteried parts. As this history progresses, we shall find our 
hero progressing with it, and consequently find all “cuss" words 
give way to words of blessing; because, in the coming out from 
Babylon and the entering into the city of the “Second Coming," it 
will be found that other “old things" of a deeper nature than mere 
“cuss" words will give way to all “new things" in response to the 
trumpet sound of Him “that sat upon the throne saying, Behold, I 
make all things new." 

Some little time had to be given to Mrs. McNal for “primping," 
so that it was nearly one o’clock when they arrived at the home of 
the Counsellors. Mrs. Counsellor, who for years had not been 
strong, was visibly weakened. Nevertheless she went out to the 
yard gate to greet the visitors. Whilst she was affirmatively cordial, 
the preacher and his wife were correspondingly negatively cool. 
Emily seemed embarrassed, dnd when Mrs. Counsellor took her 
hands and kissed her she burst into tears. Mrs. Counsellor, divining 
the reason of the tender-hearted girl’s distress, passed it by without 
notice and pressed all to go into the house. 

Now, Judge Counsellor, who hated all pretense and flummery, 
and actually believed that Brother McNal would be relieved in not 
finding him at home, when twelve o’clock came had his horse 
saddled and rode over to one of his farms, having explained to and 
satisfied his wife that this was best, as he aid not wish to hurt the 
feelings of any one, let alone those of a minister, at his own house. 
Pie could not see his wife imposed upon, and he perceived that her 
hospitality had been slighted, and to tell the truth he had about the 
same feelings as those uttered by John. Only he never expressed 
his feelings to John or to any one except his wife. The absence 
of her husband in connection with the coolness of her minister 
affected Mrs. Counsellor greatly. Still she bore up bravely. A 
really good woman, with her heart breaking, can avoid even the 
appearance of “hurt or hurting feelings" at her own home in the 


DINNER AT PREACHERS' HOME. 


51 


presence of guests. The strain, however, costs her at times the 
expenditure of an exorbitant waste of strength. 

The conversation dragged along. Not even up to the dinner 
table did any one speak of the absence of the Judge. Mrs. Counsellor 
said nothing, for she could never prevaricate, and did not have the 
tact to mention the matter without danger of telling the truth about 
it. John, perhaps thinking that his father would be on hand at 
dinner, said nothing. But when all had been seated around the 
table, and the father's chair remained vacant, John asked, not his 
mother, but the waiter: 

“Where is papa, Sim?” 

Sim understood the situation, and with a naiveness that will 
never be noticed by the recording angel, replied: 

“Ole Marse was awfully sorry ’cause he couldn’t be here to 
dinner; but he was compelled to go over to the bottom farm, or 
somebody or somethin’ would greatly suffer he said. He looked 
like he was sufferin’.some way. I fear he done got sick down at 
that ar bottom farm.” 

Sim did not mention the “who or what” that caused the suffer¬ 
ing. Perhaps he did not know and was thus kept from telling a 
lie, and relieved John and his mother. 

Brother McNal, expressed no regrets at the absence of the 
host, but seemed to be somewhat, as a Texan says, “hoped up,” and 
cheered by Mrs. Counsellor’s good coffee he began to be a little 
more communicative. Up to that time he complained of a “sick 
headache,” and all that his wife or any one else got out of him was 
by the “corkscrew” process. But hearing that Judge Counsellor 
would not be on hand to dinner and perhaps helped by the coffee, 
he said to Mrs. Counsellor: 

“Sister Counsellor, I greatly regret, as your pastor, that your 
husband and son are identifying themselves with elements that are 
hostile to our church interests.” 

“Oh, Brother McNal,” she replied, “you men seem to me to 
be perfect children. You never seem to differ about anything with¬ 
out getting a little bit disturbed. I think that you and my husband 
both mean well, and that one day you will see things alike. Even 
the best of people cannot see everything alike at all times, can they, 
Sister McNal ?” 

“Oh, I suppose not,” assented Mrs. McNal. 

After a little silence Mr. McNal said to John: 


52 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


“When do you start for the University, or are you going again ?” 

“Yes. I start about the 15th of this month,” John replied. 

“I heard it reported that you were not going any more on 
account of President Shannon’s lectures proving the “divinity of 
slavery from a Bible standpoint.” 

Here Mrs. Counsellor, knowing John’s impetuous .nature, and 
his weakness for speaking his mind, hastily interposed and said: 

“Oh, Brother McNal, we teach John to let anybody have his 
own opinion in politics; and we always convince him that our 
argument is right by appealing to him to say whether or not he 
does not like to have his own opinion.” 

“Well, well,” replied the preacher, “as a general thing it is 
true that each must have his own opinion; but there are things and 
times when a difference of opinion cannot be tolerated. And I 
think that in these times of abolition agitation, no man in the South 
should be permitted to entertain, let alone express, an opinion that 
is not in keeping with Alexander Stephens’ idea that Cotton is 
King and that slavery is the arch stone of liberty.” 

“Please explain to me how it can be proved that slavery is the 
arch stone of liberty,” requested John. 

“Oh, this can be very easily explained,” said the preacher. 
“Why, you see that a man \vho owns another man is proud and 
can never be made a slave himself, and not being a slave, he is free. 
This is the logic of the case.” 

John was about to “put in” something about such logic, when 
his mother, desiring to turn the discussion into fields such as a 
preacher and his flock may “go in and out” of and find pasture, said: 

“Wait a minute, John, there is a question that I want to ask 
Brother McNal’s opinion on, and for fear I forget it, I will do so 
right now. Can you be interrupted, John, for about a minute to 
give me time to inquire about a matter that you and I have both 
discussed, and about which I want our pastor’s opinion?” 

“Do you allude to what is my opinion about the Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill?” asked Mr. McNal. 

“Oh, no,” she replied. 

“Perhaps you want my opinion on the disputed point as to 
whether a negro is a monkey or a man; or, in other words, whether 
he has any soul?” asked the preacher. 

“Oh, I never heard of such a thing being disputed and had 
never thought of it. I know that our old black mammy, who has 


DINNER AT PREACHERS* HOME. 


53 


taken care of John and loves him as well as I do, is not a monkey; 
she seems to have a big soul, and—” 

The preacher interrupted: 

“What is it, then, that you want to know of? The uppermost , 
thing that I can think of concerns the future of our beloved church. 

If we of the South succeed, our church is bound to be the leading 
church, if not to all intents and purposes the State Church. I 
think that such is bound to be the case. Hence my zeal for the 
success of slavery in Kansas and for the election of old Buck and 
Breck over Fremont, for the overthrow of Tom Benton and for 
getting slavery recognized as a constitutional institution, which the 
Constitution establishes wherever that Magna Charta of American 
liberty goes. I think Bob Toombs was right when he said in the 
.Senate that the day would come when the slave owner would call 
the roll of his slaves under the shadow of Bunker Hill. I think 
that it will be not only extended into Kansas, but all over the earth. 

It is a divine blessing for the negroes to be taken care of.” 

Here Mrs. McNal asked Mrs. Counsellor if what he was talking 
of was what she wanted to inquire about. 

“No, not exactly; but let Brother McNal go on, and when he 
gets through I will ask him about something that has been on my 
mind greatly here of late and I can’t shake it off. Now, go on, 
Brother McNal.” 

“I’m about through,” said the preacher. “What more can I 
say except to repeat the statesmanlike sentiments of such men as 
old Bob Toombs and express the broad and liberal wish that slavery 
may be extended all over the earth, so as to give the white man a 
heaven-granted opportunity of civilizing the black man; because no 
man can deny that this is the logical effect of the divine institution 
of slavery.” 

Here the preacher said that he didn’t have long to stay after 
dinner was over,—that, in fact, he had an appointment with a “com¬ 
mittee of safety” at two o’clock, and it was nearly that now. Mrs. 
Counsellor said: 

“I greatly regret that you have to go so soon, because there 
is a thing that has pestered me, and I do so greatly need your 
advice.” And so as not to permit her pastor to go off again into 
politics she continued: 

“Brother McNal, do you believe that people ever have any 
premonitions of coming death? At times I feel an unearthly peace, 


54 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


and seem to be asleep and to hear a voice, a tender voice, saying, 
‘The Lord is going to take you from the evil to come.' To con¬ 
firm this, not long ago, even John broke out with, ‘Oh, mamma, 
something tells me that you are going away from us!’ Now, what 
do you think about this, Brother McNal?” 

The preacher pulled out his watch and said that he hadn’t 
thought much about such things of late, and that it was about time 
that he must go, when, all rising from the table, they went into 
the family sitting-room, where they found Em lying on a sofa in¬ 
disposed. Mr. McNal called for the carriage, which was ready at 
the gate in charge of Sim, as John had not again volunteered to take 
Sim’s place. Soon all were in the carriage, in which Mrs. Counsellor 
had placed two big cakes, a canvased ham, a couple of chickens 
already cooked, and a big pone of light bread, saying it would 
save Sister McNal getting supper. Good-byes were said, said for¬ 
ever so far as Mrs. Counsellor and her pastor were concerned, for 
this was the last preacher’s dinner at the old-time “preachers’ home” 
ever given by Mrs. Counsellor. Soon after she became ill, and the 
fingers that had been busy all her life for her family, white and 
black, and for her neighbors, lost their wonted aptness and she 
succumbed to a lingering disease. 

Late in the afternoon the Judge returned looking weary. John, 
as was his custom, met him at the gate and told him of the day’s 
doings, and in describing the waiting at the parsonage used rather 
uncomely language. The father felt the failure of his wife also to 
meet him at the gate, which she did when her health permitted. With¬ 
out making any reply to John’s remarks, he walked languidly into 
the house and catching sight of his wife’s face saw, as he had never 
seen before, an expression that also convinced him that she would 
not long be with him on earth. This so struck him that he stag¬ 
gered like a drunken man to where his wife sat, and said: 

“Oh, my sweetheart, would to God that I could pour my life’s 
blood into your veins and make you stronger!” 

They both avoided any allusion to the visitors. Judge Coun¬ 
sellor said that as soon as John got off to the University, he would 
take his wife on a trip for her health, but she took no trip until she 
made her final visit to the angels. 

The reader must not suppose that all the preachers in Missduri 
were of the kind that the Rev. Mr. McNal is proving himself to be. 
Far from it. There were yet left many ministers who had not bowed 
the knee to Baal or worshiped at the shrine of Mars. * 


DINNER AT PREACHERS* HOME. 


55 


Yes, there were ministers of true Gospel peace and good will 
to men, such as the Godbeys, the Vandeventers, the Pritchetts, and 
the then young, but now venerable and most Christian spirited of 
old-time Virginia types of men, Marshall Mcllhany. And many 
of what were called “local” preachers kept the grace of the Prince 
of Peace as against the disgrace attached to worshipers of war. 

Nearly all of the “regulars,” that is, all who were high up in 
priestly orders, such as bishops and elders, fell down and worshiped 
Mars and offered their costliest sacrifices on his bloody altars, and 
with exceeding pain it must be confessed that there was a large 
number of just such “ministers” as we find in our Brother McNal. 
The writer, when the “Northern Methodists” got in the saddle in 
Missouri, found many McNals among them; perhaps a larger per 
cent than he found among the Southern Methodists. Of this, how¬ 
ever, hereafter. We are giving things as they actually were, not 
for any pleasure, but for the purpose of showing what forces were 
brought to bear on John Counsellor in his evolution from churchism 
to genuine Christianity, from priestcraft to Christ. John not only 
went up against church preachers, but attorneys-at-law, many of 
whom he found to be as veritable whited sepulchres as ever held 
within them the bones of dead men. 

What a shocking travesty on the proper service of Christ’s 
disciples was the ministration of Minister McNal as evidenced at 
the home of one of his soon to be sainted parishioners. The wonder 
how Christianity can survive in the hands of some of its ministers 
is only equaled by the marvel why the judgments of the courts of 
law are not held in universal contempt on account of the awful 
prostitution of justice by its own administrators. 

The mother of the Counsellors, in one generation hastened to 
the grave by the preachers, and a wife of the next generation driven 
to death by the “officers of the law,” when both mother and wife 
were worthy to walk with angels, are things to stimulate any honest 
man at least to eschew the greatest of evils if he do not cleave to 
the greatest of good. 


CHAPTER VI. 


JOHN’S MUSEUM OF MEMENTOES. A SAMPLE SCENE ON A 
MISSOURI RIVER STEAMBOAT. 


John Leaves Home for the Junior Year at the University—He and 
“Ben” Collect a Museum of Mementoes—The Last “Going Out to the 
Gate” of John’s Mother—The Last ‘Parting of John and “Ben” at the 
Steamboat Landing—The Construction Placed on “Squatter Sovereignty” 
by Some—“Layin’ Low and Sayin’ Nuffin’ ” a Safe Practice on a Mis¬ 
souri River Steamboat Back in the Fifties—A Sample Act of Ruffianism 
on the El Paso—The Captain a Fearful Failure—A Seemingly Righteous 
Retribution Overtakes Both Boat and Captain—The Angels Still in Charge 
of John. 


The time for John’s return to the University had come. Before 
leaving home he visited each field on the place where he had so 
often worked and found work a pleasure. He visited the different 
spots where he had been in the habit of “going in a swimming.” 
He visited the great orchard where he and the “pecker wood” birds 
had contended for the earliest ripe apples. He went up the lane, 
and down the road, and walked about the woodland pastures; and 
from all of these places he got something to remind him of them 
when he was far away from home. Whenever, in the madding 
crowd at the University, he got lonesome, he would go to his room, 
or out into the woods, and open up his museum of mementoes and 
live over again the scenes that each “specimen” would suggest; and 
it may safely be said that no great warrior in reviewing his laurels, 
or statesman meditating on his achievements, ever had greater leaps 
of heart than did John in revisiting through these simple treasures 
the places, persons, and things in and about the home of his boyhood. 

His father said, in bidding him farewell: 

“My son, always have the courage of your convictions.” 

The faithful following of this advice, in after years, caused 
John to give up, spiritually, father and mother and brothers and 
sisters. 

(56) 

s 




A SAMPLE SCENE ON A MISSOURI RIVER STEAMBOAT. 


57 


“Oh, my boy, my boy/’ wept his mother, with her arms entwined 
about his neck, “I feel, yes, I know that God will give his angels 
charge over you and keep you in all your ways. Good-bye, good¬ 
bye. If we should never meet on earth, be sure to meet me in 
Heaven.” 

She kissed him again and again. John, fearing to miss the boat 
that was due at ten o'clock, said to the driver: 

“Move ahead, Ben!” 

His mother lingered until the carriage disappeared down the 
road, then leaning heavily on “papa’s” arm she went from the gate 
where she was never again to welcome her son at his home-coming. 

A negro boy named Ben, about John’s age, drove the carriage. 
John and Ben were companions such as were often to be found 
in the old-time Southern homes. For years and years they had 
hunted, fished, swam, sung, danced, worked, and played side by 
side. This sort of companionship exhibited itself in John’s refusing 
to sit back in the carriage out of the sun. He shared the driver’s 
seat, and little did either think that this would be their last “side 
by side” ride on earth. 

The “El Paso,” a popular passenger packet, was at the river 
landing loading hemp, bacon, and tobacco, when John and Ben 
arrived. John had his trunk taken on board, but remained with 
Ben until the last moment. When the boat’s bell warned all to 
“get aboard,” he took Ben’s hand and said : 

“Good-bye, old boy,” and feeling something he had never felt 
before he did something that he had never done before, but which, 
when certain news came to him one winter day at the University, 
he was glad he had done. He put his arm around Ben and kissed 
him on the forehead! Then he hastened to the gang plank as it 
was being pulled in by the deck hands of the boat. 

This little affair was seen by the great crowd of passengers 
on the boat, who hurrahed; and the incident eventually led to some¬ 
thing which we will now relate as actual steamboat history on the 
Missouri River in the days of the “Border Ruffians.” 

The Missouri River at that time was a dangerous line of travel, 
but not because the boats were badly built, or that the river was 
full of snags and sand bars. The boats were floating palaces, always 
filled with beauty and chivalry. Somehow, beauty is more beautiful 
on a boat on the water, and chivalry is generally more chivalrous, 
although this latter failed to be the case in a certain transaction 


58 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


that took place on this particular passenger packet. The danger 
line at this time was such as existed everywhere, such as invaded 
Congressional halls and caused brutal attacks by young Representa¬ 
tive athletes on cultured men of the Senate who refused to bow down 
to the proslavery Baal, the Kansas-Nebraska issue. 

With slavery going up against freedorft and freedom going 
down against slavery—for freedom, like God, goes down to meet 
things,—in no place was this “going against” each other more 
marked than on the Missouri River steamboats at this time of the 
nation’s drunken staggeration. In fact, every man who did not 
believe in Douglas’s Squatter Sovereignty panacea for all our na¬ 
tional ills and woes, and who did not further put a construction on 
this “Squatter Sovereign” balm to the effect that the people of 
Missouri under the Missouri senator, Atchison, and the people of 
Florida, under the Florida colonel, Titus; and the people of South 
Carolina under the South Carolina major, Buford, aliens to Kansas, 
had the right to march into Kansas on Sunday evening and on 
Monday morning to vote, not only for the location of county 
seats, not only for representatives to represent Kansas in Con¬ 
gress, not only for a legislature to legislate for Kansas, but actually 
to vote for and elect members of constitutional conventions to 
iffake permanent constitutions for Kansas; and having done this 
voting, to return on Tuesday to receive in Missouri plaudits as 
good and faithful squatter sovereigns;—no man who did not put 
this construction on the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty was safe 
on the Missouri River from 1854 to 1861, unless like the rabbit “he 
Jay low and said nufffn’.”^ Often he was r forced to squeal, however 
much he desired to “lay low and say nuffin.’ ” 

Even territorial governors appointed by Franklin Pierce and 
approved by his secretary of war, Jefferson Davis, had a hard time 
on the Missouri River when they failed to do all the dirty work 
expected of them in Kansas. One of these fleeing governors, Shan¬ 
non, was then on the El Paso. About a year before, another of 
Pierce’s governors, Reeder, had gone down the river in disguise 
as a deck hand for fear some of the Missouri Squatter Sovereigns 
would tar and feather him because he did not put the Missouri and 
South Carolina construction on the Squatter Sovereign doctrine. 
Reeder objected to Missouri voting in Kansas, and he had, in the 
language of that day, “to git up and git.” 


A SAMPLE SCENE ON A MISSOURI RIVER STEAMBOAT. 


59 


At this very landing where John got on the boat, another 
governor (Robinson) of Kansas, elected by the people, and his 
sick wife were arrested and taken off the boat, sent back to Kansas 
and held prisoners for four months by the regulators. If 4 such 
things be done in green trees, what might not be expected in dry 
ones such as Northern preachers and John Brownites generally? 

The boat was crowded with passengers. The beauty and 
chivalry of such counties as Saline, Lafayette, Jackson, Ray, Clay, 
and Platte were there, with here and there a bird of prey known 
as a river gambler. The great majority of the passengers were 
the creme de la creme of the. border ruffian counties,—girls and 
boys on their way to college,—the boys going to the University or 
Westminster, and the girls to the Christian Church School or the 
Baptist College at Columbia. These counties were, in public 
thought, the heart of the border ruffian region of outlaws—the home 
of the Jesse Jameses, the Bill Andersons, the Jackmans, and of 
guerrillas generally. Notwithstanding that the majority of the 
people were M the law-and-'order school, there was a turbulent 
element that made it unsafe for such as pronounced cow, “ke-ow,” 
and Isaiah, “ 1 -zi-ah.” A minority of the population did not gag at 
stuffing a ballot-box in Kansas, or shed many tears at the tarring 
and feathering of Northern preachers. 

There went on dancing and card-playing and drinking juleps 
and talking politics pretty much on one side; for very little liberty 
of speech was tolerated unless it was of a sort of “jug handle” 
variety,—all on one side, and that side for making Kansas a slave¬ 
holding State. 

Owing to this one-sidedness of things, but few incidents oc¬ 
curred .worthy of note. Among the beautiful girls aboard was one 
from Platte County with whom John had a little more than a mere 
speaking acquaintance. Her father, as one of John’s University 
friends described such things, “had the scads and a pasture full of 
mare mulesand withal, it might be .said, had a most lovely daugh¬ 
ter in Miss Annie, whose acquaintance John had formed some years 
before at the governor’s reception at the State capital when his 
father was governor. 

After night, when the stars were shining overhead and the 
moon upon the surface of the great river made it look like a sheen 
of silver stretching before the bow of the boat, the voice of revelers 
was heard below in the cabin, the lonely cry of the whippoorwill 


60 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


came from the wooded hills bordering the river, mingling with the 
sound of the splash of the wheels and the puff of the steam escape 
pipes. The majestic boat moved along like a great thing of life. 
The old river seemed as of yore, yet it had become almost a 
veritable river of blood and violence. John, in his thoughts of 
home, and mother and father, and—well—of Emily, sat in deep 
meditation upon the hurricane roof, when the Platte County girl 
on the arm of a gallant came bv and said: 

“Is that you, Mr. John? You seem lonesome since you left 
the dusky companion whom you kissed this morning when you got 
cut of the carriage to come on the •boat.” 

Now, John knew that the lovely girl had a Southern heart in 
her bosom, like his own, and would have done the same thing to her 
mulatto maid, Lucile, had she thought, in parting from her, that 
she would never see her again, as it had suddenly come to John 
about Ben. Hence he did not take the remark as one of pique, 
though perhaps so intended. He rose to his feet, shook hands 
with the “Belle of Platte” and unconsciously holding < 3 n to her hand, 
said: 

“I think, Miss Annie, that with your big Southern heart you can 
appreciate the feelings of mine. Even all the world loves a lover. 
Now, then, if I seemed to love the African lad whom I embraced 
because we had played together at many a Bingen not on the Rhine, 
but on the old home farm, now then, if I had a heart big enough 
to love and embrace a dusky lad without comeliness of feature, what 
wouldn’t my heart do if it once began to pour out its wealth of 
love to a sweet, lovely, and loving girl? What would be the joy 
of such love! It would baptize its recipient with love, or with what 
mamma calls a “baptism of fire,” which means an all-over immersion 
in love.” 

The young girl, instead of carrying out her “pique,” as was 
usual with many Southern proslavery ladies of the day, deeply 
blushed and said: 

“Oh, excuse me, Mr. John.” 

In after years, when John was in religious controversy with 
the scribes and pharisees of the church, the doctrine of love, or 
charity, which overcometh all things, yet vaunteth not itself, stood 
him much in hand. 

“I envy whoever may be your sweetheart, Mr. John. Good- 
mght, said Miss Annie, and went on her way capturing all hearts 
that were not preoccupied. 


A SAMPLE SCENE ON A MISSOURI RIVER STEAMBOAT. 


61 


John believed in the love of one for one, and was always 
loyal to his one sweetheart, absent or present, but through his one 
sweetheart worshiped all womankind. 

Things on the Missouri River at that time were abrupt. Hence 
our history requires an abrupt change from sentiment to brutality. 
Further down the river and some miles above where John Counsellor 
was to get off the boat, to go out to Columbia where the University 
was situated, the following affair, typical of those days on the 
Missouri River, took place: 

Young Counsellor was seated on the cabin deck with his feet 
on the boat railing, viewing the scenery gliding swiftly by, when a 
well-dressed and more than ordinarily cultured looking old gentle¬ 
man, coming out from breakfast, took a seat along side of him and 
remarked: 

“I saw you yesterday when you got but of your carriage. I 
was quite struck at your kissing the colored bov. Was he a slave ?” 

To this John replied: 

“Well, yes, as slaves generally go in that section of Missouri.” 

“What do you mean,” said the stranger, “by ‘as slaves gen¬ 
erally go in that section ?’ Is not that in what is called the Border 
Ruffian section of Missouri?” 

His inquiry, “Isn’t that in the Border Ruffian section ?” seemed 
to have an air of surprise that a colored boy would get such treat¬ 
ment from his master in that section. 

There was sitting near a man whom John knew personally to 
be a pretty tough regulator from Jackson County, where the toughest 
of the toughs then dominated. This particular man went by the 
name of Jim Crow—somebody. 

John replied to the stranger that most slave-holders in that 
section had slaves more as an ornament than as a means of money 
making,—that his father had to support his negroes in part from 
his professional fees,—that most of them cost more than they came 
to,—that some had inherited negroes and some had got them by 
marriage; and told him that the “colored boy” was one of his 
father’s negroes that was of the same age as himself, and that, 
living in the country, the boy had been a real comrade to him and 
he was greatly attached to him; and that, while he was not in the 
habit of kissing the “colored brother,” that he did so on this oc¬ 
casion from a sudden impulse which sprang from an indescribable 
feeling that he would never see the boy again on earth. This seemed 


62 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


to satisfy the stranger. John then, unfortunately, told his name 
and where he lived, and, as a matter of course for mere politeness’ 
sake (and the stranger was a gentleman or he belied his looks), 
the stranger was compelled to tell his name and place of residence. 

“My name is Rev. -” (I now forget the name), said he; 

“I live in Massachusetts and have been West on some land busi¬ 
ness.” 

The regulator sitting near, on hearing the “Rev.” mixed up 
with a residence in Massachusetts, seemed to become obsessed of 
a devil of some kind, and said in a loud and boisterous manner, so 
as to attract attention from all around. 

“Reverend H— A, from Lawrence, Massachusetts, out West on 
land business! I’ll bet‘you the treats to the crowd that you are a 
d—n abolitionist out here looking for a chance to steal niggers.” 

This raised a great hurrah from the by-standers, who, snuffing 
a fracas, began to gather around, some crying out, “Go to him, 
Jim Crow!” and others, “If that fellow is from Lawrence, he ought 
to be- hung.” 

Now, nobody had said anything about Lawrence except the 
regulator; but one remark brought on another until one would have 
imagined, from the remarks, that the stranger had made a red-hot 
stump speech, and had declared himself an “advance agent of an 
underground railroad,” an “abolitionist,” a son of John Brown, or 
old John, or the devil himself; and that he was in favor of insur¬ 
rection, murder, burning, and prizing up hell generally. Yet he 
had not said a word except what he had said to John. The crowd 
put words in his mouth and charged him with using them. By 
this means many of the passengers who had not heard the beginning, 
really believed that he had used the words that the crowd repeated. 
Perhaps a hundred men were jammed around. Knowing how such 
things generally ended, John called for Captain Dix. But Dix was 
a hard egg himself and did not put in an appearance, as in all duty 
as captain he was bound to do. John, seeing this, endeavored to 
pacify the crowd, and said: 

“If any man is to be hurt, let it be me, for I’m the be-hoy that 
kissed the negro.” 

Here the regulator, who, in fact, by marriage was some kin to 
John, said: 

“We aren’t making war on boys. Get out of the way and I’ll 
give the d—n Massachusetts nigger-stealer a dose of Border 



A SAMPLE SCENE ON A MISSOURI RIVER STEAMBOAT. 


63 


Ruffianism that will last him all the way from hell to break- 
fast.” 

He then seized the stranger by the hair, and, being a powerful 
man, gave him a jerk, a blow in the face and a kick simultaneously, 
and landed him between the guards around the steamboat chimney 
and against the hot chimney itself in a space about large enough 
to hold the body of a man. Here with the chimney scorching his 
clothes, prostrate, flat on his back, the regulator stamped him and 
beat his face into a jelly, the crowd in the mean time yelling and 
cursing in such words as, 

“Give him hell !” 

“Go to him, Jim Crow!” 

John had been pulled and pushed away from the crowd into 
the cabin by a couple of fellow students who knew him and knew 
the danger he was in in standing up for the stranger. 

This brutal act was the feather that for once and all determined 
John that if war came, notwithstanding he and all of his kindred, 
without one single exception, were Southern born and bred and lived 
in the South among negroes, he would not go into the war. This 
was the turning point also in the career of the two students who 
pulled John out of the mob. Youth is impressible. 

And now the strangest part of this historical relation is yet to 
tell. It is not so strange that men in the heat of such contests as 
that which shook the political heavens and earth along the Missouri 
River from 1854 to 1861, should do a great many brutal things; 
but in this case a steamboat captain in full charge of a boat per¬ 
mitted this horrible brutality to be perpetrated on one of his pas¬ 
sengers and made no effort to prevent it, and then he ordered the 
pilot to round the boat up against the bank in a wild tangled wilder¬ 
ness, and, instead of putting off the assaulting party, he cast off 
the stranger, wounded and bleeding, and pitched his trunk after 
him. The trunk broke open, and the contents, which perhaps a 
loving wife had lovingly packed, were scattered here and there. 
All this made John feel, although he was always inclined to hope, 
at least, for universal salvation that, if there is not a hell, there ought 
to be one for such steamboat captains! He then and there said 
outright that the “d—n boat ought to burn and the captain with it.” 

And sure enough, within a few moons from that night, John 
read in the Missouri Republican an account of the burning at the 
wharf at St. Louis of the steamboat El Paso, and that “Captain 
Dix” was burned with his boat.” 


64 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


John thought of his imprecation, and asked God to forgive him 
and grant that Captain Dix have no more of hell than what had 
overtaken him in the burning up with his boat. He then thought 
of the stranger, mangled and bleeding, put ashore in the wilderness 
wayside place, and prayed to God that he might again meet with 
him, if not on earth, then in Heaven, so that he might make him 
a profound apology and ask his forgiveness for not getting off of 
the El Paso and remaining with him in the wild Missouri woods. 
Even at this early stage of his regeneration John saw that such 
action would have been more creditable, or at least more Christian, 
than his boyish performance of wishing for more of hell to the 
captain and his boat; for he thought that what he had seen on the 
El Paso was enough to satisfy any normal hunger for hellish 
things. Yet he had prayed for more of it! 


CHAPTER VII. 


JOHN’S JUNIOR YEAR AT STATE UNIVERSITY. 


The “Idiocy” of the President—The Death of Ben and What Caine 
Of It With John—“Kentucky”—Mary Ann, or the Girl That Knelt At 
Church—How “The Second Coming of Christ” is Effected—The Rol¬ 
linses As a Type of Southern Character—The Radical Difference Between 
a “Southerner” Proper and a “Proslavery” Propagandist. 


During the years just preceding the Civil War the State Uni¬ 
versity was red-hot with dispute and debate about the Kansas ques¬ 
tion, about slavery, about “cotton as king,” about the Wilmot 
proviso, about the right of secession, about the Dred Scott decision, 
about the glories of prospective War, about one “white man” whip¬ 
ping ten Yankees, and in fact, about every particular lamb, ram, 
dam, sheep, and mutton of the political breed. Especially at all 
times and in all places was there discussion and dispute about slavery, 
about its divinity, its necessity in order to preserve freedom, its 
unconquerableness, and its glories and prospective sway that would 
extend from everywhere to everywhere. 

Students were gathered there, not only from all over Missouri, 
but from over the whole West and many of the Gulf States. Two 
great Female Colleges also gathered from far and wide the daughters 
* of the South and West in close communion with their brothers. It 
is true that a student from Illinois was killed in the porchway of 
the University building, but this was not about politics. Why there 
were not continual killings going on, it is hard to say other than 
that one of the great virtues of a University life is to make men 
cosmopolitan and charitable of each other’s views. The President 
of the University during the vacations of these years spent his 
time in “stumping the State,” delivering addresses, lectures, and 
harangues, proclaiming and endeavoring to prove that “slavery is 
a divine institution” because it is here and there mentioned in the 
Bible. By the same kind of proof this eminent preacher might 


(65) 




66 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


have proved that polygamy is a divine institution, and cited Solomon 
with his multitude of wives as proof from holy writ. 

There were occasional rows among the students, of not a very 
serious kind. John, soon after his arrival, had a little “bout” with 
a long-haired student from Kentucky. When Missouri and Ken¬ 
tucky meet on opposite sides of the fence the fence generally has 
to take care of itself. The Kentucky student was an ardent believer 
in and able advocate of the extension of slavery. While personally 
he and John were friends, politically they were antipodal. “Ken¬ 
tucky,” for sometimes students were called after the State or county 
they came from,—“Kentucky” got word of the episode of John and 
dusky Ben. John had just heard of the death of poor Ben, and 
had a message from him in a letter from his mother: “Poor Ber 
died yesterday. For some days before he was delirious, and im¬ 
agined that he was hunting or swimming with you. He often spoke 
out, using such expressions as, ‘Oh, Marse John, I know where 
some apples are ripe. Let’s go and get ’em;’ ‘Let’s go and hunt up 
the cows;’ “Oh, Marse John, what will I do when you go away?’ 
‘Saturday evenin’ won’t be Saturday evenin’ when you ain’t here.’ 
Just before he .died he was in his-right mind, and as I stood at his 
bedside the last thing he said was, ‘Old missus, God bless you. Teli 
John that I have left him niv bow and arrow and the little red 
rooster that he gave me. That’s all I have, or I would leave him 
more. Tell him not to forget me, for I am one of his best friends.’ 
Here he shook hands with us all and went to sleep and passed into 
the other life.” 

After receiving this letter John went to his room and opened 
his museum of mementoes.” Ben had helped him gather these. 
Each called to mind some incident. When John came to the “twig,” 
he remembered that when Ben plucked it for him from a sugar * 
tree from which they had made much maple sugar, he said as he 
handed it to him: 

“Here, Marse John, I’m in hopes that things will always be 
kind ov sweet in your life like this ’ere sugar tree is.” 

These things filled John’s heart with sad and tender memories 
and his tears would not be repressed. After an effort to compose 
himself, he started out for a walk in the woods. Just as he reached 
the gate of his boarding-house yard he met a crowd of students who, 
seemingly, were out on “a lark.” Among these was “Kentucky,” 
who was “drinking” a little. 


John's junior year at state university. 


67 


“Here's Counsellor,” said Kentucky, somewhat boisterously. 
“He is the chap that kissed the nigger. Let’s kangaroo him. And 
if we had the object of his tender affection here, we’d split his black 
hide with a blacksnake whip. Wjiat shall we do with his young 
master ?” 

His impetuous nature urging a fiery rejoinder, John said to the 
roisterer: 

‘‘See here, my friend, you may not know 7 the relations existing 
between the boy, Ben, and myself, and therefore your ungentlemanly 
language may be excusable. But if you did know how Ben and 1 
stood with each other and then talk as you do, you’d be a d—n 
unmannerly boor! Whichever way it may be, you know that you 
are not living in a kind of house that will justify you in casting any 
kind of stones at me about negroes.” 

“What do you mean by what you say, Counsellor?” said Ken¬ 
tucky, in a violent manner. 

“I mean,” replied John, “the thing which you know to be true, 
and many others know to be true, that you have been more intimate 
than merely to give a kiss on the forehead with at least four or five 
lewd negro wenches here in this town. You know that your intimacy 
with one in particular, cost you nearly one hundred dollars in order 
to get rid of the effects of it. Dr. Lee will testify to this. My 
action toward the boy w 7 as from a genuine and legitimate affection, 
and was spasmodic and merely sporadic. Your conduct has become 
a chronic business, and springs from diabolical and shameful lust. 
Now that’s what I mean, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.” 

“Come, boys,” said one of Kentucky’s crowd, “this won’t do.” 

The student who made this remark was a particular friend of 
John’s, and was a stalwart, double-fisted, good-humored fellow 7 who 
might be called a “peacemaker.” He said to Kentucky: 

“Kentuck, you’ve got the worst of it, just like every fellow that 
gets drunk ought to get. Now 7 let’s have no more of this. You owe 
Counsellor an apology, and when you get sober, if you don’t make it, 
then you can cut my acquaintance.” And speaking to the crowd, 
he said: 

“What do you say, boys, to this?” 

“Say to what ?” blubbered Kentuck. 

“Why,” said the peacemaker, “that you are drunk and that 
you’ve got the bag to hold; and when you get sober, that you must 
make an apology to Counsellor. Now you know that University 


68 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


students must not only be, but must act the gentlemen. No boy 
that’s not a gentleman can stay here long." 

Here another boy said, 

“I move that what Peacemaker says be voted unanimously as 
being the sentiment of this crowd." 

The motion was put and carried unanimously, and Peacemaker 
and the mover of the motion took “Kentuck" one by each arm, and 
the squad moved on. 

John went to the woods, where he simply sat down and 
cried like a child. Next day “Kentucky" sent him an apology 
in writing, to which John replied, also in writing, explaining 
how it was that he had embraced the dusky Ben and how, 
when “Kentucky" talked of splitting Ben’s black hide with a 
whip, that he had just heard of Ben’s death and his heart 
was hot. He regretted the whole matter between him and “Ken¬ 
tucky," and wound up by saying that he would rather be killed than 
unnecessarily wound even any one’s feelings. So the big “Peace¬ 
maker" proved one of the angels that John’s mother had prayed 
might keep charge over her son to keep his foot from dashing against 
a stone. “Kentucky" was known to be a “hard nut" and was really 
a desperate fellow. He became a “bushwhacker" and ran with Bill 
Anderson and Quantrell during the war. A -fellow student reported 
to John many years afterward that the last he had ever seen of 
“Kentucky" was on the fatal morning of August 21, 1863, when he 
saw “Kentucky" shoot down a preacher at the Lawrence massacre. 
The preacher refused to help him put a bag of gold on his mule 
that he had taken from a bank. He has long since disappeared 
among the debris of the Civil War. 

During this session of the University John got acquainted with 
a newspaper editor known as Dr. P. In many respects Dr. P. was 
neither a Moses nor a Solomon—being editor of a proslavery Demo¬ 
cratic paper—yet he had some bright ideas, especially abctut theology. 
It was he that first planted in John’s mind the central truth of all 
Christianity, without which the whole structure of Christianity is 
like a body without a head—a something without a beginning or an 
ending. One Friday evening this newspaper man, as a reporter for 
his paper, visited a session of the Athenian Society, a literary organi¬ 
zation connected with the University, of which John was a member. 
Seeing from the part which John took in the debate that he had a 
head of his own and thought for himself, and had but little respect 


John's junior year at state university. 


69 


for mere traditions that were not in keeping with the original land¬ 
marks of the commandments, Dr. P. next Sunday at Sunday-school 
handed him a neatly printed religious journal which had as a motto 
flying at the head of its columns, the prophetic declaration, “Behold, 
I make all things new.” In this journal, the good newspaper man 
had marked the following: 

o 

SCRIPTURAL PROPOSITION. 

ist. That there is but one God. 

See Deut. iv. 35, iv. 39, xxii. 39; 2 Kings xix. 15, 19; Psalm lxxxvi. 9, 
lxxxvii, 10; Isaiah xlii. 8, xliii, 10, xliv. 6, xliv. 8, xlv. 5, 6, 14, 18, 21, 22, 
xlvi. 9; 1 Cor. viii. 4, 6; Mark xii. 29; Mark xii. 32. The “Holy One” so 
often found in Scripture means that there is but “one” God. 

2d. That the Lord Jesus Christ is this one only God. 

See Isa. ix. 6; Matt. i. 23; John i. 17, i. 14, xx. 28; Jude v. 25; Col. 
ii. 9; Rev. i. 8; 1 Tim. iv. 16; Acts xvii. 23; Rev. xxi. 3; Heb. i. 8; 2 Sam. 
xxii. 32; 2 Chron. ii. 5; Psalm xxxvi. 9; Isa. xxv. 19, xl. 3. In fact, all 
things predicated in “the law,” in “the prophets,” and in “the Psalms” 
are predicated of the Lord Jesus Christ. See Luke xxiv. 21, 27, 44. 

3d. There being only one God and the Lord Jesus Christ being 
“this only wise God our Saviour” (see Jude xxv. 2), it therefore follows: 

I. That in Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, dwells all of the fullness of 
the Godhead (see Col. ii. 9), which “all fullness” is Father, Son, Holy 
Spirit, Saviour, Redeemer, Creator, and Almighty God; and, in fact, com¬ 
prehends every name, every feature, and every element which in all the 
law, psalms, prophets, gospels, epistles, and revelation, is predicated of the 
Godhead. So that from the First to the Last He is God, “All in All.” 

II. It follows that the Lord Jesus Christ should be the object of 
all Christian worship, and that all prayer should be directed to Him, 
sometimes in His relation to us as “God,” sometimes in His relation to 
us as “the Everlasting Father,” sometimes in His relation to us as 
“Saviour,” or Redeemer, but always “not for the sake of another,” but 
for “His own mercies’ sake,” His own “loving kindness’ sake,” His own 
“name’s sake.” 

III. It follows that “out of Christ” we will never “see God,” that 
“out of Christ” we can never “come to God,” because “the Christ” is a 
term that predicates the divine-human body of the Lord God; and we 
can only come at a person by and through the body. 

IV. It follows that any doctrine that is in any wise based on the 

idea that there is more than one God, such as that one God died to 
satisfy the justice or wrath of another God, is but a direful heresy which 
crept like a serpent into the church creeds during the dark ages, and 
on which fornication many of the kings, or doctrinal creeds of the 
earthly churches, “have been made drunk.” See Revelation, xvii., chap, 
v. 1-5.) ✓ 


70 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


John had been brought up in the orthodox doctrine of ‘‘three 
persons in the Godhead,” Christ being the second person. When 
he read the statement above cited, it had somewhat of a painful 
effect on his mind. Perhaps it affected him a little as the declara¬ 
tion of Jesus to the Jews affected the Jewish mind when He said, 
“Before Abraham was I am.” This pained the Jews; all of the 
teachings of Jesus pained them, because his teachings were contrary 
to their traditions, even as above Scripture was contrary to John’s 
ecclesiastical dogmas. 

John laid the paper aside, not knowing that on full and un¬ 
prejudiced investigation of the truth in the marked statement 
all of his theological ideas would be so changed that there would 
take place in his life a passing away of all old things of a dark-age 
theology, and the coming of all things new, as prophesied would be 
the case by Him who “sat on the throne” when he said, “Behold 
I make all things new.” 

Some years after that John asked his Methodist pastor about 
this marked statement. The pastor said that it was a “substantial 
statement of what all the orthodox churches believed.” Subse¬ 
quently John asked another Methodist presiding elder about it, and 
the elder angrily declared that it was an “awful heresy.” But all 
along for years and years, as he read “orthodox theology,” John 
could see that this statement was not a substantial statement of what 
the “orthodox” churches believe. And yet, as from day to day he 
read the Bible, he could not see that it was “an awful heresy,” as 
many of the elders said it was. John began to feel that his mind 
theologically was a little like the world as described in the second 
verse of the first chapter of Genesis, “without form and void and 
darkness was upon the face of the deep.” But by continual reading 
of the Bible and some papers handed him by Dr. P., he realized 
what is stated about light in the third verse of said chapter, but 
was many a year in entering into the realization of what is stated 
about the fourth day in verses 14 to M) inclusive. And after some 
thirty odd years has but entered into the twilight of the “evening 
and morning” of the sixth day of personal regeneration, which 
regeneration is the subject matter of the first chapter of Genesis. 
The “marked” statement led John, by thought and prayer, to enter 
the “light” of the “first day” when there was no sun, moon, or 
stars, and into the light of the “fourth day” when sun, moon, and 
stars appeared, as wi|l be hereinafter explained. 




♦ 

tohn's junior year at state university. 71 

Little did John then think what would eventually come of the 
visit of the newspaper man to hear a debate in the halls of the 
Athenian Society on the subject, “Should Kansas be admitted into 
the Union under the LeCompton Constitution which recognizes 
Slavery ?” 

John was leader on the negative. In after years the question 
of slavery entering into Kansas, as great as it was just now, paled 
as a fitful lightning bug’s flash before the sun, in presence of the 
question of entering into the secret of the central truth of all Scrip¬ 
ture contained in the marked statement; which central truth will 
usher the “Second Coming of Christ” into the spiritual horizon of 
all who receive and understand it. 

The session was hastening to its close. John was making satis¬ 
factory progress in the studies of the junior year, and was looking 
forward to home, though he was saddened by the thought of not 
meeting Ben at the steamboat landing to drive him home and tell 
him of a thousand things. 

He had written to Em, but had never received a reply. The 
reason for this will be explained in another chapter. In the absence 
of any letter from Em, John was tempted to try to fall in love with 
a comely resident of the University town, whom, for any reason, as 
she may still be alive, we will call Mary Ann. What first attracted 
John to Mary Ann was that she “knelt down at church” instead 
of bending her head on a bench in front, or standing up, or worse, 
as some do, sitting bolt upright during public prayer. 

In his busiest day of sowing wild oats, John always said that 
he would be afraid to marry a girl who “didn’t have any religion.” 
It is true that in after years John changed his ideas as to what 
“having religion” meant. It is a little singular what an attraction 
a modest, diffident-looking girl, who has pretty eyes apd who “kneels 
down” at church, will have for a University student. John after¬ 
ward understood that it was not the girl herself, but the qualities 
indicated by her actions, which impressed him. 

So much for Mary Ann. But there was a picture of a then 
very little girl that first came into John’s view in May, 1857. At 
that time the incident was unnoticeable and was entirely lost sight 
of for long years. In this case it was not the picture, but the girl 
represented by the picture, that had to do with John’s life a great 
deal more, perhaps, than did his father and mother and Em and 
Mary Ann and Ben and all the corps of the University combined. 


72 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

There lived near the University what is known all over Mis¬ 
souri as the Major Rollins family. Perhaps no family in the State 
had such an open-door entrance to and assured standing in all the 
inner circles of culture, intelligence, social favor, wealth, and every¬ 
thing of good repute, as did the Rollins family. The mother, the 
father, the sous, and beyond all, the daughters of this family, each 
and all/made people coming in contact with them feel that all the 
works' of God, so far as manifested by that family, were good, yea, 
very good. The father was, perhaps, in the public forum the most 
eloquent speaker in all the State. He is known as the “Father of 
the State University.” The mother was the impersonation of all 
the graces of woman, wife, and mother. The sons were living 
pictures of noble form and manliness. The. daughters embodied 
the grace and refinement of generations of true gentlemen and 
ladies. 

John attended a social reception at the home of this family. A 
thousand articles of bric-a-brac, daguerreotypes, and souvenirs 
adorned the mantels and tables of the spacious parlors. Almost lost 
in this tanglewood of interesting objects lay a small picture of a 
modest-looking girl that contrasted greatly with the somewhat pre¬ 
tentious young laides promenading about the great rooms of the 
Rollins mansion. 

“Who is this?” said John, taking up the little picture. 

“Oh,” replied Laura Rollins, “that is the picture of one of our 
sweetest and dearest little friends, who is now with her father in 
Europe. Her mother is dead. We all call her our own little 
Clara.” 

Nothing more was said; but John thought there must be some¬ 
thing much more than ordinary in “our own little Clara.” Were 
not such the case, why should such a manifestly superior girl as 
Laura Rollins* be so stirred at the mere mention of the diffident 
looking girl’s picture ? 

The junior year was over. Vehicles filled with students lined 
the plank road that led from Columbia, the seat of the State Uni¬ 
versity, to the steamboat landing at Providence, where John, in 
better spirits than when he landed there ten months before, em¬ 
barked for home on the steamboat Martha Jewett. 

The mention of the Rollins family in this narrative is made 
for several purposes. This distinguished family was, like the Coun¬ 
sellors, “tainted” with having at least that sufficiency of heart coupled 



John's junior year at state university. 


73 


with the considerateness of judgment that led them to have an 
interest in the slaves in their midst higher than the commercial 
view of the greatest amount of money that could be wrung out of 
them as “hands.” The Rollinses favored the Henry Clay and Jeffer¬ 
sonian doctrine of gradual emancipation, with compensation to 
owners and colonization of the negroes. So also, like the Coun¬ 
sellors, the Rollinses were opposed to allowing Missourians to vote 
in Kansas. They were afterward opposed to “secession.” Right 
here we desire to record the fact that the class of people through 
Missouri and the South, spch as we have described the RoWinses 
and the Counsellors to be, were emancipationists and opposed seces¬ 
sion. The bulk of the rabid proslaveryites were not of the old-time 
Southern stock, though by some means the terms “proslavery” and 
“Southern” have been falsely' considered to convey the same idea. 
These two families represented what may be called the old-time, 
genuine Southern people. In the main the rabid and frothy pro¬ 
slavery element consisted, in great part, of men who owned no 
negroes; of Northern men who had come South as overseers; of 
commercially inclined Yankees who had come South and married 
girls who “heired” negroes; of men of brutal instincts, such as 
thirst for dominating the weak; of men of ambitious, yet cruel, 
vulgar, and barbarous instincts, such as thirsted for the military 
rendwn which might come with w 7 ar, of which Forrest, the original 
negro trader, is a type. The basest element of all was the one that 
was so low down itself that it feared the negro would get above or 
equal to it. 

Now, all see that the Rollinses and the Counsellors did not be¬ 
long to any of the proslaverv elements just named. It is true that, 
from education and environment, especially from the education that 
came from “preachers,” many good men outside of the classes above 
named were rabid proslaveryites. But the most of these were young 
and impulsive. Had the Lees of Virginia not been military men, it is 
exceedingly doubtful whether they would not have been found op¬ 
posed to a war the object of which was to make slavery perpetual. 
As it was, many believe that the great heart of R. E. Lee was broken t 
by a war in which, notwithstanding his most extraordinary career 
as a general, his affection, or at least his better judgment, was not 
really enlisted. 

However this may be, it should be written down as a matter 
of history that there were tens of thousands of the real genuine, 


74 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


warm-hearted “Southern” people who were not “proslaveryites.” 
Just as a vast number of the followers of Seward, Sumner, Chase, 
Lincoln, and the original antislavery leaders are not to-day partisan 
Republicans. Seward, Sumner, Lincoln, and their kind represented 
at the North genuine humanitarians, as the Bentons, Houstons, 
Clays, Rollinses, and Counsellors did at the South. Hence you 
might as well say that Seward, .Sumner, Chase, and Lincoln were 
not types of the genuine Northern man, as to say that such men 
as those here named were not of the stamp of Southern people. 
The histories of the day are written by partisans,—those miserable 
vultures! In their histories, written from a partisan standpoint, 
the men whose names will be conspicuous in the “Lamb’s Book of 
Life” do not, as a matter of course, figure in large letters. The 
pages of the world’s history are monopolized by the names of the 
self-seeking, the self-pushers, the bloody and brutal bulldozers, such 
as the Caesars, the Napoleons, the burners of cities, the destroyers 
of men’s lives. 

Hence, let it be forthwith and forever known that one may be 
a rabid proslavery propagandist who has scarcely an element of 
the genuine Southern, character; and that one may be of the highest 
type of Southerner and yet not be a Border Ruffian, nor an unreason¬ 
ing proslavery propagandist, nor yet a secessionist with great length 
of zeal and great shortness of wisdom. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


JOHN’S RETURN FROM STATE UNIVERSITY, 1857. 


Both Sides and Channel of Missouri River on Same “Side of the 
Potomac”—Captain Jewett a Model Captain For All In Authority— 
John Pours Some of His Life Into His Mother’s Bosom—Why Young 
People Go To Church—John Meets Em—Em Not a Bit Foolish—John 
On a Point of Honor—His Mother Makes an Effort to Meet Him at the 
Gate—Voting a County Seat in Kansas—John’s Mother Is Raised Up 
Among Her Kindred, the Angels. 


John’s trip home on the Martha Jewett was without other than 
pleasant incident. There were two main reasons for this: one of 
which was that all Northern travel and trade had been driven from 
the Missouri River route and it was altogether quiet, because both 
sides and the channel were on the same side of the same Potomac. 
Then, again, Wm. C. Jewett, the boat’s captain, allowed no ruffianism 
on his boat. 

It was a warm, bright day in July, 1857, that John reached 
home. As Ben was dead, no one met him at the steamboat landing, 
his father being off on important business prosecuting a noted out¬ 
law. And no one met him at the gate! This seemed strange to 
him, but he soon learned the reason of this reception, unusual even 
to strangers at the house gate of the Counsellor home. His mother, 
not wishing to interfere with his studies, had neither written, nor 
permitted any one to write, to John as to her fast failing health. 
So when he came the only thing she could do was to have her bed 
moved to the window that faced the gate, and feebly wave her hand¬ 
kerchief at him as he walked up from the gate. 

John at once saw how things were, and, even at that early age 
knowing the power of cheerfulness and hopefulness, and that like 
produces like, he walked gently in at the open door of his mother’s 
room and forced himself to assume a cheeriness of voice and 
buoyancy of spirit which he was far from feeling. He knew his 
mother had been a living sacrifice for others. He thought that he 


(75) 





76 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


ought to be equally brave and buoyant, especially when he knew how 
finely strung and consequently how impressible his mother was. 
John himself was not either of a* beef steer or of a jelly-fish nature. 
His grain was fine—even superfine—to receive and transmit im¬ 
pressions directly into thought and action. On entering the room, 
he said, kissing and rekissing his mother: 

“Why, mamma, I am so—so glad to see you. Let me look at 
you. I know you have been sick, but I also know that now you are 
going to get better. So you see that one unpleasant ‘know’ is offset 
by another pleasant one, hence this whole sickness business is can¬ 
celed, and you are just as you used to be, my own dear mamma. 
Where is papa?” t 

Without waiting for an answer, desiring to give his mothei 
time to get over the excitement of his coming home, he got up from 
the bedside and said: 

“I forgot to settle with the hack-driver; and besides I’ve got 
some of the ‘bestest’ strawberries you ever saw. They are just the 
apple dumplings for any kind of a darling, especially for my darling 
mamma, and I’ll go and, as Jack Riley says, Totch’ them in.” 

Sure enough, John’s cheerfulness started the blood to flowing 
afresh in his mother’s veins; and since “the life is in the blood,” at 
the blood flowed it carried fresh life into his mother’s feeble body. 
So that, when his father came home the next day, John and his 
mother walked out to the gate to meet him. This little incident lit 
up the whole countenance of Judge Counsellor. Oh, lost to the 
strongest way of making a guest at home—of making one feel a real 
welcome—is that host,* or home-keeper, who fails to greet comers 
at the gate, and God-speed goers by a walk with them to the gate. 
This courtesy of antebellum days was characteristic of every genuine 
Southern home. 

For weeks John kept pouring this kind of balm into his mother’s 
bosom, and she seemed to be slowly regaining her wonted strength 
and good spirits. 

Mrs. Counsellor, having eaten with a relish the berries that 
John brought in from the hack, sent for the housemaid to come and 
help her put on her new dress. She would try to sit up for a while ; 
and having accomplished this, the cook was directed to have an old- 
fashioned fried chicken for supper and have her place fixed at the 
table, for she would try once more to sit at the head of the table 
and pour out John’s coffee. 


John's return from state university. 


77 


"‘Because/’ she said, “I know he is tired, and a little of our old- 
time coffee will do him good.” 

At the supper table Mrs. Counsellor recounted to John such 
neighborhood news as she had not been able to write to him; telling 
him among other things that Emily was prettier than ever, and that 
she was the only one of “our preacher’s” family that ever visited her; 
that Emily had wondered why John did not write to her, and said to 
tell John when he came that he “needn’t be so stuck up” because he 
was a University student as to forget her, but that she was not 
doming to see him. 

“Though,” said she, “I won’t run off from home, or send out my 
card that "Miss Em is not at home’ if he comes to see me.” 

To John this seemed strange talk, coming from one to whom 
he had written a very fervid letter and had received no reply. So, 
next day being Sunday, he determined to “spruce up” and go up tc 
town Sunday-school and church, not particularly to learn of the 
things of the heavenly world, but to find out from Em a few things 
about the “life that now is/’—especially that part of it in which he 
and she were figuring. The truth is that at that day, and even at 
this, about nine-tenths of the young people attend the sanctuary with 
about this same purpose. 

On Saturday night John visited the negro quarters and said a 
kind word to each and all; and had not only a kind word, but gave 
a little present to each one. He took one of Ben’s brothers, and, 
as the moon was shining, went down to the orchard to Ben’s grave 
and there sat in the silence for nearly an hour. A multitude of 
scenes and incidents of their common boyhood days like a living 
cvclorama passed before his eyes. He arose and said to Ben’s 
brother, 

“Well, Phil, you will be my Ben.” 

But Phil wasn’t built that way, and never became a Ben to 
John. He became a Republican politician. 

Early next morning John was up and all over the place. After 
breakfast he sat in his mother’s room and ""chatted” with her until 
Sunday-school time. He even said that he would not go to .Sunday- 
school if she would go to church with him. He insisted on this, 
but his mother was never to ""go to church” on earth again! She 
told John that she was afraid to venture from home. She might 
get sick and put people to trouble. But she strongly insisted that 
he should go to Sunday-school, and he went. 


78 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


The parsonage was between the church and John’s home. Hence 
he went by the parsonage on his way, and, by accident, overtook 
Em by herself on the street. He at once dismounted, and, tying 
his horse to the first post, went boldly up to Em, bowing very 
politely, and said, 

“Good morning, Miss Emily.■ ,, 

The girl blushed deeply and looked confused, but rallying, said, 

“John, why don’t you call me ‘Em’ as you used to do—and 
shake hands?” 

“Why,” said John, “I didn’t know that one who would not 
answer my letter would recognize me as a bowing acquaintance, let 
alone shake hands with me.” 

“Now, John,” said Em, “if I didn’t know that you were one of 
the most truthful boys that I ever saw, I would think you were trying 
to fool me about writing. But if you say you did write, I will say 
that I did not get your letter, else I would have answered it. I 
now suspect that the truth is that father got the letter out of the 
post-office and never gave it to me; because I now remember hearing 
mamma say to papa, about a week or ten days after you left, that 
he ought to give that letter to— I didn’t hear to whom, but now 
nearly know that it was to me.” 

John said that he had written the very day he arrived at the 
University. 

“Well,” said the'girl, “now call me Em, as you used to do, 
and shake hands before we go into the church.” And John was 
not backward. 

After Sunday-school was over John rejoined Em at the door, 
and walked with her in the direction of home to the spot where he 
had hitched his horse. The walk took about three times as long 
as was necessary to traverse the distance. Em, knowing that John 
was pretty high strung, and being a little uneasy lest her father might 
not treat him as courteously as she would like in case he went home 
with her to the parsonage, told him that perhaps he would better 
not go any further; but that she had an engagement to visit her 
sister, Mrs. Georgia Ewell, that afternoon at three o’clock. 

John was not only “high strung” but was the very soul of 
honor, most especially where women were concerned. So, as he 
mounted his horse, he said: 

“Em, I know, whether you do or not, how I love you. Now, it 
occurs to me that it is not right to meet you away from home if I 


John's return from state university. 79 

cannot meet you at homV I’ve been out in the world a little more 
than you have; so, while you can altogether rely on what is to me 
the most pleasant of facts, that I am your—your sweetheart, your 
anything that you say,—yet I cannot come to see you at your sister’s. 
Love like ours will find some honorable way for us to see each 
other. So, my sweetheart, good-bye.” 

John decided not to go to church, but to go home at once to 
his mother, as she had been looking a little wistful and weak when 
he left her that morning. Reaching home, he found her making a 
great effort to come out to the gate to meet him. From a distance, 
he saw her start from the porch with tottering step, then stop, then 
sit down on a bench that had been placed by the path under the 
shade of a great spreading cottonwood tree. John at once divined 
why she sat down before she reached the gate, and being some dis¬ 
tance away, the boy burst into tears. This was well; by the time he 
reached his mother’s side he could the better restrain himself. So, 
riding up to the gate, he hitched his horse and composed himself as 
he walked up to his mother and said: 

“Why, mamma, I am glad to see you able to be out of doors 
such a beautiful morning as this. I will sit beside you, and we will 
talk until papa comes.” 

He chatted pleasantly with his mother for some time, telling 
her of a good many things that took place at the University, the 
people he had met in town, and of his meeting with Em and the 
outcome of it,—which outcome his mother approved of heartily. 

Presently Judge Counsellor came up the lane, and found his 
wife and son. Mrs. Counsellor said faintly, 

“Papa, you and John help me to the house. I feel that this is 
the last time that we will all sit out in our beautiful yard together.” 

The Judge and John tenderly helped “mamma,” as both of 
them called her, into the house. It was well that John had not 
made the engagement suggested by Em, as he would have had an 
explanation to make for not keeping it. His mother was taken with 
a relapse, and for ten days lingered between life and death, during 
which time John did not go outside the yard. At the end of this 
period his mother revived, and she and “papa” and John had many 
a pleasant conversation. 

John’s meeting with Em was farther off than he expected. Her 
father was transferred by the annual conference, and with his family 
went to one of the churches down the river, where, in a few months, 
he died. 


80 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


More than a year passed before Em arid John met face to face 
again. When they did meet John was reading law in the office of 
an ex-attorney-general at the capital city. 

Some of the citizens of the county where Jtohn lived had laid 
off a town site in one of the richest counties in Kansas, bordering 
on the Missouri River. The county seat of this county was to be 
determined by election. It was necessary to have votes to select it. 
One of Judge Counsellor’s neighbors had a large interest in the 
town which Missourians had located, and this town was in the race 
for the county seat. 

Some weeks before the election John and his father were sitting 
out on the bars that led into a meadow where the negroes were 
cutting and shocking hay. The public road ran bv where they were 
sitting, and their attention was attracted by the clattering sound of 
the hoofs of a horse being hurried by its rider, who was one of the 
boomers of the Kansas town that was a candidate for the county- 
seat-ship. Riding hastily up to where John and his father were 
sitting, the town boomer said, 

“How many hands, Judge, can you send over to Kansas to 
vote ?” 

“To vote for what?” asked Judge Counsellor. “There have 
been so many things to vote for in Kansas, such as legislators, state 
constitutions, and this and that, it is hard for us people here in 
Missouri to keep up with the days when elections are to be held and 
what they are for. What is now to be voted for or against?” 

“Why,” replied the boomer, “that ar town of Kickapoo, that a 
whole lot of your neighbors are interested in, has got to be elected 
as county seat and we want a company of one hundred men to go 
over and vote one thousand votes, if necessary, to elect our Kick.” 

“Let me tell you, my friend,” said Judge Counsellor, “this thing 
of Missourian^ going into Kansas to vote for any person, place, or 
thing is wu*ong. It is a violation of lawL It will lead to anarchy, 
and anarchy brings war, and war brings everything of bloodshed 
and of burning. I have never been to Kansas to vote, and I never 
will go there to vote unless I become a citizen. And I will not 
advise, let alone assist, any one to go there and vote.” 

“Why,” replied the boomer, “do you consider yourself better 
than Senator Atchison, General Stringham, and even a whole lot of 
preachers, wffio advise us that we must go over the Jordan and clean 
the heathen up and take possession of the promised land ?” 


John's return from state university. 


81 


“Perhaps this might do,” replied the Judge, “if Kansas were a 
land specially promised to us Missourians,—but who promised it to 
us? This ‘promised land' business and killing the heathen is all 
bosh ! -Yes, worse than bosh ; it is a burning shame—a crime!” 

“I believe all of you big slave-holders are turning d—n aboli¬ 
tionists. I’ll go down in the bottom below here and get some boys 
who will go and vote old Kickapoo through,” said the boomer, as 
he put spurs to his horse and hurriedly rode off. 

At the election which took place the next week “old Kick” got . 
about two thousand votes, when it was, perhaps, entitled to some 
one hundred, or two hundred at most. 

The vacation was drawing to a close. John’s mother had 
lingered along between life and death. One night, about the middle 
of September, husband and son were sitting by the old-fashioned fire¬ 
place in the room where she was quietly sleeping. Just at the turn 
of midnight Mrs. Counsellor, waking, called, 

“Papa, papa, you and John come here to the bedside.” 

They did so, and speaking in clear, distinct tones, the dying 
woman said: 

“I am dying. It is better that I do die. I cannot help any one 
and every one is only helping me. I feel very happy. I know that 
my Redeemer liveth, and I am passing through the valley and He is 
with me. I feel that He is even now raising me up out of the valley 
of death into a heavenly place. I am now beginning to understand 
what He meant when He said, ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life,’ 
and wherever He is there is no death. Pie is with me. My body 
will die, but I will not. I will go to sleep like a child, and Jesus, 
who is the Resurrection and the Life, will wake me up in Heaven in 
a very little time—not over three days at longest—for the Book 
says, ‘After two days will He revive us; in the third day, He will 
raise, or resurrect, us and we shall live in His sight.’ Oh, how 
plain this is to me. Our good Methodist preachers think that the 
resurrection is a day aw r av off; but I see now that they are, like 
Martha the Jewess, innocently but altogether mistaken. Martha’s 
idea about her brother, as she said, was, ‘I know that he shall rise 
again at the resurrection on the last day,’ but Jesus said to her, ‘I 
am the Resurrection and the Life,’ and in order to show by an earthly 
object lesson that He could at once raise or resurrect people, he 
‘raised’ Lazarus up. So He will me—not my body—but me. For 
my body will return to dust because it is material, but I, as an ever- 


4 


82 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


living soul, or spirit, will be raised up to live with God. See my 
old marked up Bible. All of these things and very many others 
are marked there,—in my old Bible which I have read more than 
ever since our good preachers have quit coming to see us. I wish 
our poor good Methodist preachers understood what the resurrection 
really is, and that they would quit preaching the letter that kills, 
and preach the spirit that makes alive; get their minds off the body 
and the graveyard, and place them on the ‘living soul’ as a real 
spiritual person in the world of .spirit. God said that He is a Spirit, 
and where He is we shall be; and He is not in the graveyard, but in 
the spiritual world. I see this so clearly now,—and how it cheers 
me up. When my body is dead and you tenderly bury it, don’t think 
that it is I. It is the mere earthly house that I lived in while on 
earth. I have inside this earthly body a heavenly body in which I 
will live in Heaven, just as I lived in this earthly body here. I’ll 
still be your wife, papa. I’ll still be your mother, John. Oh, don’t 
think of me as dead, but as more alive than ever. Think of me as 
living in some heavenly country, something like one of the sunnier, 
balmier countries of earth, where I will get my health back and be 
stronger than ever, and where I will love you both more than ever. 
I see how this is now. I wish you could see it as I do. But as you, 
and John read and depend on what the Bible says, and not on what 
our poor mistaken preachers say so much, I know that you will both 
see that, instead of me lying in the graveyard, that I have been 
resurrected, or raised up among the angels; and that I am living and 
not dead, because Jesus says that He is not only the Resurrection, 
but the Life, and that He is not the God of the dead but of the living! 
How, I want John to learn this and if he will some day to preach 
it—preach the Lord Jesus Christ as the only wise God our Saviour, 
our Redeemer, our Heavenly Father, our Resurrection and our 
Life, our all in all. I leave my marked up Bible to John. In 
it he will find more things marked than I can now tell of. Now, 
papa, you and John kiss me while we are the only ones here.” 

Judge Counsellor kissed and kissed again his dying wife, and 
John laid his head on her bosom and sobbed and sobbed. Then 
Mrs. Counsellor said: 

"Go and wake up all of the servants and tell them to come in 
to see me for the last time. I want to tell them farewell.” 

John went out and waked up the servants. All having come 
m, the dying woman said : 


John's return from state university. 


83 


“Little children,”—she was in the habit of calling everything 
helpless or dependent “baby” or “little children.” She always re¬ 
garded the negroes, so helpless and dependent were they, as little 
children.. Addressing the family negroes who were all sobbing 
about her bedside, she said: 

“Little children, I’m going away from you, but I will never for¬ 
get any of you. I want you all to meet me in Heaven. If you 
have an humble place on earth, you will be invited up to higher 
places in Heaven. Love one another. Be good children and I will 
try to get the good Lord to let me meet you when you come into the 
other world, and welcome you to your home; because there every 
one has his own home—‘his own vine and fig tree,' as the Bible says. 
Here my home has been your home, but there each one of yQU will 
have a home—just such a one as he wants. Now, little children, 
you must believe this, because God's Bible says so. John, I hope, 
will teach you what this Bible says.” Fast sinking, Mrs. Counsellor 
went on, as if in a revery: “1 hear singing. Oh, it is so, so sweet. 

Is it you singing, little children? Good-bye. Good-bye, papa. 
Good-bye, John. Good-bye, little children. God bless you all. Now 
I'm rea-rea-ready,” and the Christian woman, wife and mother, fell 
into a gentle slumber, and, just as the morning of a beautiful Indian 
Summer day in September came up over the familiar field and forest 
east of the old home, she went away from her earthly to her heavenly 
home. She was unclothed of the earthly body, and clothed upon 
with her body not made with hands, already, or eternal, in the 
heavens above. 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE BURIAL. JOHN’S LAST YEAR AT THE UNIVERSITY. 


None of the “Orthodox” Clergy at the Burial—Judge Counsellor 
Officiates As Priest In His Own Family—He States the Faith in Which 
His Wife Lived—The Old Family Cook Worships God in Her Accept¬ 
able Way—John’s Visions Of His Mother—A Sensual, Materialistic 
Priest a Source of Discord at the Burial of Such as Understand What 
the Resurrection Is—An Earthly Angel Averts an Altercation—John 
Graduates with the “Sweepstake” Ribbon. \ 


On the third day after the departure of John’s mother from the 
earthly to the heavenly life, services as to the burial of her body 
took place. In the home orchard, under apple trees then in full 
fruit, was her body tenderly laid in the bosom of mother earth. No 
clergyman officiated. Her husband, thinking that she died in the 
faith of the true resurrection as taught by Christ, but not by the 
local clergy, wanted no strange fire or feigned sanctity at her grave. 
So felt John, forty-four years after this, at the burial of another. 

There was a vast concourse of friends, neighbors, and even 
strangers at the burial services; for the entire community, saving 
some of the clergy, recognized Mrs. Counsellor as a neighbor whose 
helpfulness never failed, as a good woman whose charity never 
vaunted itself, and a Christian whose zeal never in the least rejoiced 
in iniquity but always rejoiced in the truth; whose religion was an 
alembic that resolved all commandments into one word—love,—love 
to God and the neighbor. Many had learned things from her about 
the Christ that they had never learned in the churches. And some, 
knowing of the neglect, if not desertion, of her by her church preach¬ 
ers, and who had never been to a religious sacrament before, came 
to do honor to one whom the priests and Levites had passed by on 
the other side. All the negroes from the adjoining farms were 
there. Some of the Judge’s personal friends from neighboring 

( 84 ) 






THE BURIAL.-JOHN’S LAST YEAR AT THE UNIVERSITY. 85 

cities were there, among them many noted public men. But in all 
the concourse there was not a single member of the “orthodox” 
clergy. 

Judge Counsellor, according to ancient ways, officiated as priest 
in his own family. At the grave he read from his wife’s Bible 
passages marked by her own hand, among them the following: 

“The end of all the Commandments is charity out of a pure heart, 
and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned; from which some hav¬ 
ing swerved have turned aside into vain jangling; desiring to be teachers 
of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm” 
(i Tim. i. 5-7). 

Again: 

“I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the 
latter day upon the earth” (Job xix. 25). 

“Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the govern¬ 
ment shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called the Won¬ 
derful Counsellor, the AlAighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince 
of Peace” (Isa. ix. 6). 

Then again: 

“He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John xiv. 9). 

“I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John xi. 25). 

“After two days He will revive us: in the third day He will resurrect 
(or raise) us up, and we shall live in His sight” (Hosea vi. 2). 

The Judge, in his plain, judicial way of expressing ideas, then 
explained that as to doctrine his wife was a Christian, because she 
looked upon and worshiped the Lord Jesus Christ as the Wonderful 
Counsellor, the Mighty God. the Everlasting Father, the Prince of 
Peace, the Resurrection and the Life, and as the “only Wise God 
and Saviour.” 

That his wife was a Christian as to life, because, as a woman, 
as a wife, and as a mother, she did what Christ commanded. 

He then went on to explain the beautiful doctrine of the Lord 
Jesus being the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega, the Be¬ 
ginning and End, the “Only Wise God, our Saviour;” and also his 
wife’s faith as to Christ as the ever-present Resurrection and Life* 
and related what she had said on that point just before her death. 
He then closed by saying: 

“Her body is here with us. Tenderly we commit it to that 
which is like unto it,—earth to earth; but her great womanly, wifely 
spirit is with God, who is also a Spirit; like in the same world with 



86 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 

like: material body in the material world, ever there to remain, spirit 
as a living soul—a real living person—in the spiritual world, there 
to remain forever with the angels like herself. For all are finally 
gathered together with their kindred." ’ 

After the deposit of the earthly body in the earth, the old Judge 
asked that all unite with him in, not reciting, but praying the Lord’s 
Prayer. 

Unknown the Judge, the old family cook had prepared a 
bountiful repast for any who might be so far away as not to be able 
to reach home by dinner time. This old soul had somehow learned 
from her “old Missus” that all religion consisted in doing right 
whatever you had to do, w T ith a good intent to others; and what 
better part, she thought, could she take in the burial services than 
to feed the hungry, as the Master did in the wilderness? She 
thought that “old Missus” would be pleased with this. 

“Because ole Missus know dat I’m onjy a cook, and dat I can’t 
do anything else to please her.” For Mrs. Counsellor always praised 
the old Mammy’s cooking. 

As to John, ever since his mother died he seemed to be living 
in two worlds,—listening to his father’s words in this world and 
ever hearing the words of his mother as coming from the spiritual 
world. In the visions of the night he thought he saw her in a beau¬ 
tiful home in company with the kindest people that he ever saw; and 
she seemed to have everything she wanted. The kind people could 
not do too much for her, and she was not sick any more. He awoke 
from this dream—a dream that was the truth, sealed as wisdom in 
a vision—thinking of Jesus healing all manner of sickness, and of 
a world in which there is no more sickness or death. He asked his 
father why none of the preachers were at his mother’s funeral. To 
which question, Judge Counsellor replied: 

“That was all right, John. If in a few years you do not see it 
yourself, I will then tell you. You know that at the University you 
had to learn arithmetic before you did algebra. So it is in the Bible. 
—some things are to be learned before other things can be learned.” 

Judge Counsellor knew that John was too young and had not 
read and understood the Bible sufficiently to be like his mother— 
having no need of an earthly priest or preacher, seeing that “God- 
in-Christ” was her only high-priest, without spot or blemish. 

It was some dozen years before John realized how people can 
worship God in temples not made with hands, and how there is no 


THE BURIAL.-JOHN’S LAST YEAR AT THE UNIVERSITY. 


87 


need of an earthly priest either to forgive sins or to do anything 
else that the Lord Jesus Christ does for those who come direct to 
Him as the “only wise God, the Saviour and the Heavenly Father.” 

A good woman, who is in the degree of a “faith unfeigned,” 
and whose guilelessness is pained at feigning things, would certainly 
be grieved, if she were cognizant of it, when, at her grave, a minister 
holds one idea of God and she another. The preacher would be 
confused in thought while preaching of the resurrection of the ma¬ 
terial body at the last day, while she then and there is experiencing 
the raising up, or resurrection, of herself as a spiritual person in 
a spiritual body into a spiritual world. 

In the other life such discord separates people as far as the 
east is from the west. It pains a good spirit to hear a sensual and 
materialistic interpretation of that which is above flesh and blood. 
In fact, the letter kills,—kills all real intelligence, kills all peace 
and joy. But the proper understanding of the spirit fills our mind 
with light and our life with joy and peace in the Holy Spirit. 

John was already more than due at the University, where he 
went to complete his senior year. Ben was gone; Emily was gone; 
his mother gone; and his father, being lonely at home, accompanied 
John to the steamboat landing and remained there until the steamer 
came down the river. It would have been better, at least for John’s 
peace of mind, had his father left for home before the boat came. 
It lay for an hour at the landing, taking on hemp, bacon, and similar 
freight. Judge Counsellor went on board with John, and was sit¬ 
ting talking with him about his mother’s death and of things in her 
life, when he heard a rough voice from a crowd that was drinking 
at the bar, saying: 

“Isn’t that that d—n old free-soil abolitionist sitting out there?” 

There were some four men who had just completed a game of 
cards in the crowd. Among these four were two noted professional 
gamblers who made a business of traveling on the river boats for 
the purpose of following their trade. They were, without exception, 
of the “On to Kansas” type of bulldozers. They would, by talking 
politics of the proslaverv kind, inveigle gentlemen traveling on the 
boat into an acquaintance with them. Southern gentlemen are al¬ 
ways social-hearted, especially the warm-hearted and generous 
youths. In one sense, these desperado gamblers were fascinating 
serpents in dove-cotes. The other two persons who were taking 
drinks were two young men, one of whom was a classmate of John’s, 


88 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


en route, like John, to the University. The gamblers had permitted 
these young men to beat them out of the “treats" as a lure for get¬ 
ting them into a game of cai;ds for money, when, as a matter of 
course, another result would follow. 

Both Judge Counsellor and John heard the remark, yet, although 
both knew that it referred to the Judge, neither took any notice of 
it. They were too gentlemanly for that. Besides the old Judge 
knew the advantage of being wary, and of keeping in the right and 
remaining quiet until the time for affirmative action came. As for 
John, though his whole life had just been baptized with his mother’s 
gentle spirit that bore and endured all things with a charity that 
hoped all things, yet he had not become a veteran, like his mother, 
in the battle of life. Therefore, as may be guessed, the remark 
of the ruffian hit him square in the heart. Oh, how he wished for 
the pistol that he had carried for years, but which his mother had 
persuaded him to lay aside. Perhaps if he had had it with him, 
he would have wheeled and confronted the bulldozing gambler and 
demanded a retraction. He thought of his mother, of home, and 
looked at his aged father. His heart was hot within him. He 
could not sit still. So far he had not noticed his classmate, a son of 
General Sterling Price, as being one of the four drinking at the 
bar. But now catching the eye of young Price, he stepped quickly 
forward, not so much to exchange a friendly greeting with him, but 
to get a chance to knock the ruffian in the mouth. And if the 
angels had not held him up in their hands, as prayed for by his 
mother, John, doubtless, during these border ruffian times, would 
have dashed his head as well as his foot against many a stone, some 
of which, no doubt, would have ground him to pieces. It is said 
that, on the spiritual plane of life, a devil is abashed and paralyzed 
in the innocent presence of the power of even a little child. However, 
the will of the Lord is not yet as manifest on earth as in Heaven; 
yet there are sporadic cases in proof of the fact that devils on earth 
fall back in the presence of courageous right as a wild beast does in 
the presence of fire. Without noticing the bully, John said to his 
young friend, calling him by the name familiar at the University: 

“Why, my dear friend Celsus, I am glad to meet you. Plow 
have you been? How is the General, your father? And how is 
the one of all people in every family the best, your mother? Do you 
know my father? My mother is just dead and he is all that is left 
to me. I am ready to die for him at any time." Here John looked 


THE BURIAL.-JOHN’S LAST YEAR AT THE UNIVERSITY. 89 

the gambler full in the face and with a steady gaze was about to 
address him, when young Price, seeing the situation, said to John: 

“I am anxious to get acquainted with your father. Although 
he and you differ from me in politics, yet I know him to be a 
gentleman,' and I’ll stand by you in even killing the d—n scoundrel 
that would touch the hair of his head.” This was literally proved 
in after years when Judge Counsellor was a prisoner in the camp of 
the father of “Excelsius.” 

“Let’s go and see the old gentleman,” he continued, and taking 
John by the arm he said, “Introduce me to your father.” 

This turn of affairs prevented, no doubt, a bad altercation be¬ 
tween John and the gambler, and while Judge Counsellor and the 
boys were talking, the Highland Mary, a boat that was at that time 
the paradise of gamblers, came alongside, and the two pirates left 
the Russell and took passage back up the river on the Mary, as was 
their custom. In the mean time the Russell had taken on all her 
freight, and Judge Counsellor bade John good-bye, his parting word 
being as usual: 

“John, always seek the right, and have the courage of your 
convictions to follow it.” 

The trip on the Russell was uneventful, except that it enabled 
John and young Price to strengthen their friendship, which during 
the troublous times ahead on several occasions stood each of them 
in good stead. 

John, being to some extent disentangled from thoughts of 
earthly friends, and having his mind opened upward, found that 
his studies were easier, and his last year at the University proved 
pleasant and profitable. He graduated with the “Sweepstake,”— 
highest honor of his class, though he was the youngest member. 

During this session he boarded at the same house as a student 
from Texas by the name of Thurston, and one from Illinois by the 
name of Wansley. Thurston was a Calhoun Secession Democrat 
and belonged to the Episcopal Church; and Wansley was a Lincoln 
Republican, and belonged to the Christian or Campbellite Church; 
while John was at this date a Douglas Democrat, leaning a little 
over to the Independent, and a sort of baptized-in-fire member of 
the Methodist Church South, with a leaning toward having a church 
within himself, or a kingdom of heaven ruled over by Christ and 
His Word, rather than an ambitious church with a carnal priesthood 
that might eventuate in a pope instead of a Heavenly Father. Not- 


90 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


withstanding these three students differed radically in both politics 
and religion, they always reasoned in good faith and good spirit 
about their differences. 

On graduating, John went back to his old home, or what was 
once his home. It is extremely seldom that a home remains such 
after the departure of the mother. How painful is the discovery 
of that fact to the sons and daughters brought up in its sheltering 
folds. The brother may go, the sister may go, the father may go, 
yes, brother, sister, and father may all go; yet if the mother remains 
at the old homestead, it is always “home” to all the children. 

With his mother's expressed w T ish that he preach the beautiful 
Gospel in the faith of which she died, feebly contending with his 
wish to be a lawyer, John left home and went to the capital city to 
read law and to prepare to enter a profession which, in the long 
run, he found as demoralized as his mother had found the church, 
and as he would find the church in which he had been brought up. 
During his travels through the dry tanglewood of rudimentary 
elements and technical traditions to be found in law books, there 
was one spring in the wilderness—one shade tree in the lonely desert. 
Emily was then living with her mother in that city. 


CHAPTER X. 


AT THE CAPITAL. 


John Kept From the Weakness of a “One-Sided, or One-Ideaed” 
Crank—Advantages of a Capital City Over a Rural “Deestrict”—John 
Sees the Party Politician in His Native Jungle, the State Legislature— 
John and Em Renew Their Former Pleasant Relations—A Speech by 
Representative Chancellor—The Effect of This Speech Side-Tracked by 
a Typical Party Demagogue Named Waiscott—John’s letter to His Home 
Paper After Hearing an “On to Secession” Tirade—The Fate of a Col¬ 
league of Representative Chancellor’s and a State Senator—A Night to 
Come Before Day. 


The hand of Providence is in all things and sees the end from 
the beginning, and makes all things work together for some definite 
good. Apparently, this Providence had two ends in view in leading 
John to the capital city; one of which was that he might be brought 
into immediate personal contact with the antipodals of the civil war 
then impending, so that he would be saved from that murderous 
partisanship so malignantly fatal in public affairs. The other was 
that he might not become so totally absorbed in the study of law 
that, like those in the world of the lost, he could not see beyond his 
immediate professional environment, and thus become one-sided, 
one-ideaed, or a crank; as every man becomes who studies and knows 
but one thing. 

The many-sided man is a better man, a better citizen, a better 
companion, than the one-sided man; just as many good things are 
more desirable than any one thing of the many. “These things ye 
ought to do, and not leave the other undone,” is of more than 
human wisdom. A man may enter into the life of heaven more 
or less “abundant.” If, on earth, he keep one of the major com¬ 
mandments, or even one of the minor precepts, with good intent, 
when he departs from the earth he will enter into the life and use of 
such commandment or precept in the world to come, and the doors 
of all other commandments or precepts will be “closed” against his 
entrance. But if, while on earth, he enter into the life of all the 


(91) 





92 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


major commandments and the life of innumerable precepts springing 
from the commandments, you will see at once that his entrance intc 
life in either this or the world to come will be more abundant thar 
if he had only entered into obedience to one. This is the divine 
truth taught by the Master, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the 
commandments,” and which the apostle expressed in his declaration, 
“For so an entrance shall be administered unto you abundantly intc 
the kingdom of the Lord.” 

Woe, to some extent, to the man who knows nothing outside 
of his profession. He not only becomes a subject to be exploited 
by all others, but he never enters into the life of many things that 
might open their doors for him. 

A State capital is in many respects like the city of the heavenly 
vision, that had many sides and many gates on each side, and is an 
ideal place for making a rounded and cosmopolitan man. It excels 
the ordinary provincial town even as a University excels a country 
district school. Hence, as John Counsellor was destined to the high 
estate of believing that God lets his sun shine and his rain fall on all 
alike, he was led up from the regions of Border Ruffiandom through 
a University country to round off life in a place where all the ends 
of the earth meet. 

Texas statesmanship showed its wisdom in locating its State 
University at the State capital, thus enabling its youths to combine 
a University education with capitolian cosmopolitan finish. 

Woe to the citizen who is a mere farmer, or mechanic, or 
merchant, or lawyer, or even preacher, and neglects to acquaint him¬ 
self with those relations, and the obligations and blessings or curses 
that arise from the relations, which every man bears to every other 
man. 

Emily was now living in the capital city from which she was 
soon to go away, and another, in a far different plane of life from 
that occupied by Em was to come into John’s life and ascend to a 
still higher plane than either lived on at the time of their joining 
companionship for a journey through long, long years of evoluting 
out of old things and involuting into new ones. 

As a matter of course, it will be understood that John’s main 
work in his residence was to read law, and that he did that work 
well. Hence we will say nothing more on that subject than that 
he read and, as a committee reported, understood the books in the 
course of legal study necessary to get a license to practice at the bar. 


AT THE CAPITAL. 


93 


John renewed his pleasant relations with Emily. By marriage 
and by birth her mother was connected with some of the leading 
people socially, religiously, and politically. Hence her home was, 
to the brilliant and influential people who congregated at the capital 
city from all parts of the State, what one of the salons of the 
brilliant women of Paris was to the lords, dukes, and princes that 
gathered from all parts of the world to Paris in the days preceding 
the French Revolution. 

If John had been disposed to be jealous, the presence of so many 
bright young men, such as newspaper reporters, clerks of legislative 
committees, visiting young capitalists, or lobby members, and bright 
young politicians, members of the Legislature itself, to say nothing 
of young and brilliant and successful lawyers in attendance on the 
sessions of the Supreme Court,—-the presence of these in the social 
home of Em’s mother would have inspired him with the torments 
of the green dragon. But he always felt, as a sensible man should, 
that “if Em is mine and I am hers’* nothing but death can come 
between us; but if Em is not really mine in heart, the sooner some 
one comes to whom she is in heart a real sweetheart, the better for 
both. So he never had a thought of jealousy in all those Indian 
Summer days of his love to and from Em. 

The war came on. Em’s folks were all strong secessionists 
while John’s were all unionists. But Em and John, being “in love,” 
were true to each other, notwithstanding about them raged a revolu¬ 
tion that was like the kingdom of heaven in only one respect—that 
of being at hand—in which there was a. death struggle to divide 
even the country itself in twain. John was always true, knowing 
that in order to have friends one must remain friendly to the end. 
And it is needless to say that it was no grievous task to be friendly 
with such a girl. 

During the time that John was reading law the State Legis¬ 
lature of Missouri met. Somewhere in Holy Writ is a scripture 
that teaches that many devils may so concentrate in one body as to 
be called one name—“Legion.” So from all over the State there 
was gathered into this one body a legion of party politicians. From 
occasion to occasion John visited the sessions of this body. For 
the purposes of this historical romance we will make one general 
remark and then one personal or particular one. 

Generally speaking, no one could be such a dullard as not to see, 
from the speeches of the Democratic party legion assembled in the 


94 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


legislative body, that the country was fast floating downstream into 
the Gulf of Revolution. The members of this body seemed to be 
obsessed of the same devils that obsessed the members of the French 
King’s Council in the days just before the Revolution. They seemed 
to be judicially stricken blind. 

Sitting in the lobby one day, listening to the debates, John said 
to a friend at his side: 

“General Hackford, it would save the people of Missouri 
millions of dollars and perhaps ten thousands of lives if they would 
establish a public school in which every man who aspires to be a 
legislator should be a student; and all pupils should be required tc 
study three books in the preparatory department, the same three in 
the freshman class, the same three in the sophomore, junior, and 
senior classes. These books should be a book on the importance of 
legislators having a little common horse sense, Carlyle’s “History 
of the French Revolution,” and the Bible. These big men seem tc 
have no common sense. They are pushing and pulling the country 
into revolution. They are smiting and sawing asunder again the 
prophets that forewarn them of coming danger.” 

This was the general impression that the Legislature of i 858 -’g 
made on John. And now to a particular. Before John left his old 
home county he had united with the law-and-order element in 
electing an anti-revolutionist to this legislative body. He was a 
graduate of the State University, and was a kinsman of John. We 
may call him Walter Chancellor. 

There was also a member from one of the up-river counties 
named Waiscoat. Waiscoat was one of the storm petrels dashing 
about on the spray of the coming storm, and was quite a dashy orator 
—a stump speaker and nothing more. In speech he deceived his 
looks; because as to looks he seemed to be a cross between a terrapin 
and a Rotterdam Dutchman; and had the appearance of being a 
graduate of the Gold Cure curriculum exclusively. Yet, all of the 
sophistry, all of the heated blood that people were getting drunk on, 
all the scaly fascination of a beguiling serpent were factors in the 
general make-up of Colonel Waiscoat. He was one of those peculiar 
self-pushers that always do what Mrs. Fremont saw was necessary 
for the personal success of her husband, “Keep yourself asserted.” 
Colonel Waiscoat kept himself asserted. After helping to bring on 
the war by this union with Yancey in firing the Southern heart, he 


AT THE CAPITAL. 


95 


managed to keep out of all range of musketry and cannon, and, 
while the boys were fighting at the front, he kept a “soft place” at 
the Confederate National Capital. 

Now, Representative Chancellor one day made a speech the 
burden of which was, negatively, for eschewing the impending evil 
of secession and war; and, affirmatively, for learning the good to be 
found in the peaceable solution of the negro problem by means of 
gradual emancipation, with compensation to owners, coupled with 
providing homes for the freedmen through colonization. It was ? 
masterly effort. It was an effort worthy of any of the days or of 
any of the councils of the best era of the Republic. 

The revolutionary element felt that something must be done 
to side-crack the effect of this speech. They had no hope of answer¬ 
ing it, but to side-track its effects by the use of sophistry, by use of 
vulgar anecdote, by use of any means that stabs in the back or makes 
side thrusts instead of face to face, fact against fact, or foot to foot, 
principle against principle methods. Sense must be overcome with 
sound, and the voices of reason be strangled in a frothy flood such 
as the dragon of the Apocalypse spewed out in an effort to drown 
the woman and her male child. 

Hence the “on to secession” enthusiasts called upon Colonel 
Waiscoat to answer the great speech of Representative Walter Chan¬ 
cellor. His answer was characteristic of all the speeches of that 
day of getting drunk on fire and blood to vomit up violence and 
miscarriage. He alternately ridiculed and denounced; then de¬ 
nounced and ridiculed; he overrated himself and underrated hit 
neighbors; he applied language to white that all history and all 
common sense show is only predicable of black; his eulogies and 
“live-for-evers” were offered as bridal gifts to slavery; while his 
maledictions were hurtlingly thrown as “anathema maranathas” and 
“delenda ests” at freedom and at freedom’s apostles and prophets. 
And yet, the ugly offspring resulting from an ill-considered marriage 
of Passion as a bride with Prejudice as a groom was, to the mor¬ 
bidly impassioned politicians of that legislature, a fair, very fair child 
—was fair and in all things worthy of the inheritance of all estates 
of government. While the male child of the woman in the wilder¬ 
ness, whose cause Representative Chancellor had espoused, was ill- 
formed and deserved to be driven out and drowned in a wilderness. 
The Waiscoats and “the great red dragon” were in the ascendant in 
those days. 


96 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


John, on hearing the speech of Representative Waiscoat and 
the applause which greeted it, wrote to his home paper the following: 

Dear Editor of the Conservator :—Our representative, Chancellor, 
made a truly great speech to-day. It was simply unanswerable in its 
logical and judicial presentation of the fundamental principles of civil 
and Christianized government, with their application to existing condi¬ 
tions. But, notwithstanding I have adopted and pasted in all my text 
books the motto, “Nil Desperandum,” yet to-night I am in actual despair 
of the Republic. The great speech of our representative was utterly- 
counteracted by a tirade delivered by a “fire-eater” named Waiscoat, who 
resorted to the usual tactics of rabble rousing which demagogues, who, 
having no statesmanship, employ. What affected me most was to see 
one of our own county representatives, elected on the same ticket with 
Representative Chancellor, taking sides with the revolutionists. Also 
our senator did the same. Both of these are personally good men, but, 
neither being much in public life, are easily seduced by the blandish¬ 
ments that are brought to bear on new men by old-timers. They, I 
fear, have succumbed. In fact, things and things, and persons and per¬ 
sons, here at the State capital point as inevitably to violence and blood¬ 
shed as causes point to effects. 

And, notwithstanding your correspondent has an abiding faith that 
the success of the right over the wrong is as certain as day is sure to 
follow night, and as summer is to follow winter, yet you may print, in 
box-car letters, in your paper, that there is going to be night before day, 
and winter before summer; and that 

“All night long, the battle is going to rage, 

On the mountains and in the marshes down by the winter sea.” 

Capitolian. 

And sure enough, both the senator and the colleague of Rep¬ 
resentative Chancellor were among the first to die in battle raging on 
mountains and in marshes of the Southwest. 

They were both better men than the spouter who played the 
aragonistic part of spewing out dirty waters, and who will do so 
again when some great commoner of the people is confronting, in 
an impending crisis, some other Plutocracy. 



CHAPTER XI. 


BACK ON THE BORDER. 


John Begins the Practice of Law in a Border Ruffian County Seat— 
He and Em Are Married—With a Small Stock of “Methodist” Religion, 
They Join the Church—An Opening Episode of the “War”—Emily’s Health 
Fails—John Carries Her Away From the Border to the Capital—The 
Influence of Such Men as the Doniphans—The Taking of Camp Jack- 
son—The Missouri State Government “On Wheels”—Price and Jackson 
Leave the Capital—The Removal of Bank Money—John Believes He is 
Still in the Charge of Good Angels. 


John, having completed his law course and received his law 
license, went back to a county more central in the Border Ruffian 
region than the one in which he was reared. Here John opened a 
law office. He had become disgusted with party politicians, and 
gave himself up entirely to his legal profession for a while with 
the result that he soon had a large practice. 

Inasmuch as the law is deemed one of the leading, if not the 
“noblest” of the “professions” (whatever that term may mean), it 
may be well enough just at this point to relate a few instances that 
will show in some respects in what the “nobility of the legal pro¬ 
fession,” as generally practiced, consists, even with such practitioners 
as John, who had been brought up by a Christian mother. 

At L—v, where John was now “settled” as a “promising young 
lawyer,” there was an old personal friend of his father who wa: 
judge of the probate court. This friend of his father insisted that 
John should have his office with him, not as a partner, but as young 
lawyers often associate with older ones and take such business as 
their seniors have no time or inclination to see after. 

The very first day that John went into the office of Judge R—t, 
an administrator of a large estate came into the office and asked 
the judge if it were not time for making an annual report of the 
estate. The judge looked at his docket, informed the administrator 
that the report was overdue, and told him he would better get 


(97) 





98 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Captain Counsellor” (everybody at that day had a military title) 
to make out the report, which was done. It took John some two 
hours to do the work. The estate was large, but not complicated, 
consisting mostly of lands and “cash on hand.” John and the ad¬ 
ministrator agreed on John’s fee being allowed for $50, which 
John thought a good-sized one, considering the work he had done 
and the ,fifty dollars being paid cash. In fact, he felt as if he were 
guilty of robbery, and would not have taken so much, but as usual 
he had first consulted his client, and the client suggested fifty dollars. 
Now, it is a little hard for even so distinguished a man as a lawyer 
is supposed to be to “take less than he is offered.” 

John spoke to the judge about the “good-sized” fee, being a 
little apprehensive that the judge would not allow it. But the judge 
said: 

“John, where were you born and educated,—especially educated 
in the first duty of a lawyer,—which is, first to get his fee fixed, and 
fixed for all if not more than it is worth?” 

To this John replied that the judge knew all about his place 
of “raising.” 

The judge then said: 

“Yes, I know your father. He is too honest to live in such a 
world as this. And I believe that his boy is going to pattern after 
him.” Then in a friendly, offhand way, he remarked: 

“D—n it, John. Th£ next time you get business like the Mike 
Arthur estate, you charge a fee of $250!” 

The next instance reflects more on John’s squareness at that 
time than the one related above reflects on his greenness in the 
“first duty of a lawyer.” 

There was a village called Missouri City, located below Kansas 
City on the Missouri River. Every two, weeks justice’ court was 
held at this river city. Just below the “city” was a very extensive 
wooded bottom where hundreds of “wood-choppers” were employed. 
These wood-choppers generally constituted the “jury” in the trial 
of cases in the justice’ court. In a round about way, which even 
John hardly comprehended, it came to pass that every time John 
won a case he would have to treat, not only the jury, but as many 
“wood-choppers” as were on hand. It is sufficient to say that with 
a jury of wood-choppers, and witnesses of the same when necessary, 
John never lost a case. And the wood-choppers never lost a treat! 


BACK ON THE BORDER. 


99 


At that time John didn’t have his letter in the church. And if 
the history of the “noblest of professions” should be truly written, 
very few attorneys-at-law do have their “letter in the church,” when 
its “being out” brings more shekels and more reputation. 

So one can see that, with this kind of a “push” by the judge 
and a “pull” on the part of the jury, John soon, not only had the 
reputation of a “promising and brilliant young lawyer,” but a 
sufficient virtuous income to “marry on,” which is one of the goals 
of every even semi-civilized man. 

Another thing that struck John, even in the first year of his 
practice as an attorney, was the peculiar quality of the many 
“amended answers” of defendants as pleaded by their “able” counsel. 

John and Em married. 

These are short words and quickly written, quickly read. But 
if the things bound up in them were to be enumerated, it would 
take a world of volumes to sum them up. They dwelt together in 
harmony in a day when the “going apart” of even old friends seemed 
to be the order. Belonging to families that were in all political 
things opposite, their mutual faith and common sympathies gave 
John an extraordinary opportunity to see from experience how people 
may be mistaken as to the motives at least of their political ad¬ 
versaries. 

Now, the Methodist Church in the faith of which both John 
and his bride had been brought up, was at the place of their present 
residence a weak and insignificant congregation’ so far as either 
numerical or social prestige was concerned. So much so was this 
that John, with his usual disposition of being with the “little dog 
in a fight,” said to his bride the .Sunday after she came with him 
to L—y i 

“Em, let’s join the Methodist Church to-day. I don’t believe 
altogether in it since my mother died; but I believe in you, and you 
are a Methodist, and I can live pretty much anywhere you can.” 

Most women, whether they understand or not a single article 
of its faith, feel like being in a church; and nothing pleases them 
better than to have their husbands go with them. So Em gladly 
accepted John’s proposition, and that day in a little church building, 
with a little congregation in attendance, and a little preacher in 
charge, John, with very little real religion, and Em, with a great 
deal of such as it was, walked up hand in hand and “joined the 
church.” 


100 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


This was in the year i860. The war clouds were gathering 
and about ready to burst, and the very first clap of thunder with a 
little lightning did take place in less than a year from that time. 
In view of the window of the room in the Arthur House, where 
John was stopping, a squad of Price’s* Recruits were captured and 
the “Johnnies” sent back home by Captain Prince of the Regulators. 

The health of poor Em began to fail fast, even faster than that 
of John’s mother. To get away from scenes incident to the border, 
she went to her mother’s home at the capital. Soon things took a 
great change. Governor Jackson and a legislature that had been 
elected on the Douglas Union ticket, as opposed to the Breckenridge 
Secession ticket, all of a sudden turned “secesh.” They called a 
State Constitutional Convention, the object of which, so far as callers 
were concerned, was to dissolve Missouri’s connection with the 
Union. The election took place in February, 1861, and to the sur¬ 
prise of the callers, only three outspoken secessionists were elected 
members of the convention of ninety-nine. The district in which 
John lived, although composed of three so-called Border Ruffian 
counties, elected three avowed Union men to this convention, all 
able men,—Doniphan, Norton, and Birch. 

In March this convention met at the capital city and refused 
to “secede,” and adjourned subject to recall in an emergency. 

In the mean time, the legislature elected on the “Douglass 
Union ticket,” but which turned “secesh,” had enacted a militia law 
organizing everybody into “men of war.” General Sterling Price, 
who was a near kinsman of John’s wife, had been elected to the 
State Convention as a Union man and was elected president of that 
Convention as a Union man. Governor Jackson offered him the 
robe of military royalty, which robe he donned one raw and gusty 
day in the early months of 186 j. Pie proceeded to organize a State 
Militia Encampment near the United States Arsenal in St. Louis. 
The encampment was known as “Camp Jackson.” 

Such men as Blair and Boernstein, scenting danger, organized 
four regiments of Home Guards in St. Louis. Through spies and 
by other means it was discovered that Camp Jackson was in cor¬ 
respondence with the Confederate Government at Montgomery, with 
the intent of capturing the arsenal at St. Louis with all its munitions 
of war. 

At the instance of President Lincoln, “the Dutch” (as the 
Unionists were then called by the “Rebs”), under Lyon, Blair, and 


BACK ON THE BORDER. 


101 


others, went quietly out to Camp Jackson, one evening in May, 1861, 
and took it in 'out of the weather, dismissed the school, and sent all 
the boys quietly home. 

Price and Jackson were then at the capital. So was John 
Counsellor, but for an entirely different purpose. He was there at 
the bedside of his sick wife, while Price and Jackson were there at 
the death-bed of a very sick State government. John was present 
when General Price heard the news of the capture of Camp Jackson. 
The general to that day had lived in hopes of a peaceable settlement 
of things. He was naturally a man of peace. The news caused 
him to look extraordinarily glum, and he rather acted the part of the 
rabbit in “layin’ low and savin’ nuffin’,” at least publicly. On the 
street, in front of the Virginia Hotel, where he was stopping, John 
said to him: 

“General, what are you going to do ?” 

To this he replied: 

“Well, John, we will throw a few chips at them, if we can’t do 
more.” These were the general’s exact words. 

Now*, as General Price knew John’s family, he naturally would 
not say much to any of them about any movements looking to a dis¬ 
solution of the Union, even if at that time he expected that event, 
which perhaps he did not. He then claimed to be a Unionist in 
favor of armed neutrality. But Governor Jackson was a blusterer. 
He at once issued a red-hot proclamation calling on all the captains 
of militia to rendezvous at once with their commands at Jefferson 
City. But one company came. Others would have done so, but 
hadn’t time. As soon as Lyon and Blair received “Jackson’s call,” 
they concluded that they would answer it at once by proceeding 
instanter to the capital city. So on railroad and on steamboats they 
embarked four full “regiments of Dutch.” But this was not the 
kind of “militia” that Jackson wanted. Still, they were coming. 
John had engaged passage early that morning on the steamboat 
Sunshine to go up to his home on the Border on business, his wife 
being a little better. The boat did not “pull out” as advertised. 
On John’s inquiring why “he didn’t get up steam and go,” the 
captain told him that Governor Jackson and General Price had 
ordered him to “hold the boat for further orders.” Here was the 
first instance of military power that John saw exercised, the stop¬ 
ping of a boat full of passengers by a paper order saying, “Hold 
up the boat until further orders.” 


102 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


But the boat wasn’t held up long. The Dutch were still coming. 
To prevent them coming too fast Jackson removed the railroad 
bridges crossing the Osage and Gasconade Rivers, which flowed 
between the four regiments of Blair’s “Dutch invaders” and the one 
company of “Jackson’s Defenders.” Such was the language in the 
days of May, 1861, at least in “Secesh” circles. 

But still the “Dutch” came,—came “marching mit Sigel,” some 
on foot, some by boat, and some in cattle cars,—with such column 
leaders as Sigel and Boernstein and such West Pointers as Lyon, 
impelled by such indomitable and restless spirits as Blair. 

With such captains in the lead, Jackson was given no time for 
his “Defenders” to rally around him. John had been with the boat 
“tied up” all day. Late in the afternoon, impatient to start on his 
journey, he saw Jackson’s one company, that of Captain Kelly of 
St. Louis, marching toward the boat. They marched on board and 
stacked their arms. Then came boxes containing what was said to 
be “archives of the State Government.” Then came members of the 
State Government. Then came General Price and Governor Jack- 
son. In the mean time two cannons and much bacon had been 
brought aboard. The boat shoved out from the wharf and the Mis¬ 
souri State Government was afloat on the water with an upstream 
pull. Nevermore was either Price or Jackson to be in their own 
State capital again. That night, about midnight, the Sunshine was 
taking on cordwood at a wood-yard about half-way between Jeffer¬ 
son City and Booneville. A horseman with his fine animal flaked 
with foam and nostrils wide open, rode up to the boat landing. 
Jumping off, he boarded the boat and called out: 

“Where is Governor Jackson or General Price?” 

“Here,” responded General Price, who was sitting at a table in 
the cabin over which a dull flickering lamp was burning. 

“Here is a dispatch from Jefferson City for you, general,” said 
the horseman. 

Taking the dispatch, General Price quickly rose from his chair, 
and holding the dispatch up to the dim light of the lamp, read it. 
Governor Jackson came out of the berth to which he had retired, and 
inquired of General Price, 

“What is the news ?” 

The general replied: “A dispatch from one of my aids at 
Jefferson city says that “four thousand Dutch under Blair were at 
the Gasconade bridge at noon yesterday, that they are capturing the 


BACK ON THE BORDER. 


103 


bridge, that six steamboats have left St. Louis and will doubtless 
reach the Gasconade to-night, that these boats will be used to bring 
the “Dutch” to Jefferson City in case they cannot repair the bridges, 
that they will perhaps be in Jefferson City by noon to-morrow. It 
is thought that their intention is to take possession of the capital, 
declare martial law, leave a regiment in command, and proceed at 
once after Governor Jackson to prevent his making a rally. It is 
said that one thousand men will join Blair’s column here.” 

The reading of this dispatch caused a general gloom. John 
went outside and took a seat on the boat’s guard. He thought of 
the burial of Sir John Moore and the “lanterns dimly burning.” 
Far back in the woods a “hoot owl” ominously hooted, and he heard 
the howl of a wolf in the thick tanglewood near the river. He 
was never so lonesome in all his life. His mother dead, his wife 
sick, his State Government fleeing, the real genuine stuff of war 
actually at hand, and he unwillingly in the very midst of its first 
convulsions. Not from fear, but weighed down with an overpower¬ 
ing feeling of loneliness, he wept—wept until weeping gave way 
to. an unutterable peace, for something told him: 

“Neither you nor any of yours are responsible for this war. 
Come what may, the angels will take charge of you and keep you 
in all your ways and hold you up in their hands.” This peace re¬ 
mained with John every day during the entire war. 

As incongruous as were the hooting of owls, the howling of 
wolves, and the presence of men of war with thoughts about angels, 
yet such were the things that discomforted him on the one hand 
and comforted him on the other. Many a soldier, who was a soldier 
from principle and not from passion, has felt this comforting in the 
midst of battle! 

At daybreak the boat reached Booneville where Price and Jack- 
son had ordered another rally. The last time in this life that John 
saw General Price and Governor Jackson, the general was standing 
on the wharf at Booneville, with his hands in his old slouchy duster- 
coat pockets, superintending the unloading of the Missouri State 
Government from the Sunshine,—which State Government at that 
time consisted of some boxes, two cannon, about five thousand 
pounds of bacon, incumbered with Governor Jackson, standing by 
with his arm over the neck of his Arabian roadster which he had 
brought with him. This horse, as things turned out, stood him 
much in hand in his charge on Arkansas! 


104 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


The Sunshine with John aboard “pulled out ’ and proceeded 
up the river. What took place at Booneville in a few days is a 
matter of history, and not a matter of John’s actual observation and 
experience, as things in this book are intended to be. 

Stopping for a few days at his old home, John found people 
running to and fro, some wild with frenzy and some dazed at the 
approaching horrors of war already begun. Brown-, Rives, Conroe, 
and Hubbell were inflaming the Southern heart with a fire with which 
they themselves, far away from home, were consumed. All of them 
perished in the far-off tangle woods of the war. Judge Counsellor 
and his like were elements of peace and of law and order. The 
Unionists began home-guard organizations to keep things quiet at 
home; while the Secession element began to organize companies to 
carry “banner, brand, and bow” against the foe, anywhere from the . 
Missouri River to the Gulf that was to be frozen over before sur¬ 
render ! 

The last Sunday evening before going on up the river to his new 
home, John spent at the residence of Judge Dunn, whose son, then 
dead, had been to John as a brother. The judge was “on the fence,” 
and approachable from both sides. While John was at the judge’s 
house, Captain Aaron Conroe, then member of the legislature and a 
leading lawyer, called to bid the judge good-bye. Conroe was 
sanguine of success and brandished a large dangerous-looking 
weapon that might be called either a butcher knife, or a short sword, 
or a Spanish machete. It seemed to be of a home-made blacksmith 
brand. 

Poor Aaron! With a kind of “I’ll see you again” air, he 
hurriedly left, never to see or be seen again in the old familiar 
places that had known him from his birth. He was killed in Mexico 
by guerrillas with, perhaps, about the same kind of knife that he 
had thought there was safety in. Often by the very evil with which 
one proposes to slay another, by that same evil is he himself slain! 
He that taketh up the sword shall by the sword perish. 

John’s father, as usual, was calm and considerate. He never 
said, “I told you so.” Pie was above that kind of pique. But he 
felt that he had not sowed to this wind, and that he would not reap 
any of the whirlwind from it. He was like a rock with the spray 
of waters beating about it, but not affecting it. He knew that the 
horrible struggle against which he had fought all of his life as a 
Jackson Democrat was on. He resolved to take no part in it except 


BACK ON THE BORDER. 


105 


such as would enable him to keep the people who were compelled 
to remain at home from cutting each other’s throats, or from being 
burned out, robbed, and murdered by those who were in arms, but 
would prefer to fight and terrorize non-combatants who had no arms 
in hand, than to fight men whose business it was to fight and had 
arms for that purpose. 

For safety, John chose as a traveling companion a noted ballot- 
box stuffer in Kansas elections and an influential regulator, and 
went on to his new home at L—y. The first night he got there 
he put up at the Arthur Hotel. During the night a St. Joe com¬ 
pany of the State militia on the way to join Price and Jackson 
camped in view of the window of the room where John slept. At 
break of day next morning this company was taken by surprise by 
a troop of regulars under command of Colonel Prince and cap¬ 
tured and paroled. Here everything and everybody was in a state 
of chaos. There was scarcely anything familiar and home-like ex¬ 
cept the domestic animals and the usual cackling of hens when they 
laid their eggs. The suite of rooms occupied by John and his bride 
at the Arthur House was lonesome enough to John with his wife 
far away and sick. So he hurried through with his professional 
business and was about to leave direct for the capital city where he 
had left his wife. 

The Bank at L—y had some $250,000 of cash on hand. Its 
officers were uneasy. They wanted to get the $250,000 to a safer 
settlement than the Border then seemed to be, so they determined to 
remove the money to St. Louis. The president of the bank, Ned 
Samuels, and its cashier, Greenup Bird, father of the wife of the 
present Governor of Missouri, were instructed to organize a body 
guard of true and trusty men to carry the $250,000 cash to St. 
Louis. John was selected as one of this number, and with eight 
other “guards” proceeded with the money in a round about way to 
St. Louis, traveling through the lines of both Union and “Secesh” 
forces alternately. At Hannibal a boat, the Warsaw, had just un¬ 
loaded a regiment of qne thousand Union soldiers. The great build¬ 
ing that served for both railroad and steamboat depot was rammed 
and jammed with soldiers, women, and children. Everything was 
in confusion. One of the bank money guards, Uncle Joe Fields, 
got separated from the rest, and mislaid a carpet sack in which was 
$60,000 cash. This was not discovered until all were on board and 
the boat had pulled in its stage plank. The carpet sack was then 


106 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


missed. By persuasion, the captain replaced the stage plank and 
search was made for it. It was found tumbled on the floor of the 
depot with its contents all safe. 

Uncle Joe was one of the principal stockholders in the bank, 
and during the balance of the trip did all the “treating” to such 
things as the bank guard wanted. John at that time was a “tee¬ 
totaler” and took only lemonade. 

With such men as Perry Moss, Steve Shrader, Ned Samuels, 
Greenup Bird, and Joe Fields in that “guard” there would have been 
a hot time in any crowd that would have attempted the robbery of 
the “cash assets” on hand. To-day every one of that guard is in 
heaven except Shrader and John, who are still water bound on the 
earth. 

Via St. Louis, John was once more out of Border Ruffiandom 
and at the State capital, with the guardian angels still in charge and 
holding him up “lest he dash his foot against a stone.” At least 
this was John’s growing faith. 



CHAPTER XII. 


* 


EARLY DAYS OF 1861. 


The Northern “Lambs” and Southern “Lions” Change Places—The 
Recall of the State Convention—Lincoln Opposes, While Provost Mar¬ 
shals and Methodists Favor Martial Law—A State Government “On 
Wheels” Replaced by a State Government at the State Capital—Gamble, 
Hall, Oliver, and Other Members of State Government Described—The 
“Reb” Scylla and the “Red” Charybdis Threaten the Wreckage of the 
New Civil State Government—A Discipline of the Prince of Peace Not 
at Home in a “Round Up” of the Votaries of Mars. 


In the early days of 1861 there was no telling what a day might 
bring forth. It was in early summer that John left the Border in 
the hands of Kansas “Redlegs” instead of Missouri Regulators. 
Some thirty days before he had left the capital city in the hands of 
the lieutenants of Price and Jackson. On his return he found it in 
charge of provost marshals of the Boernstein and Blair school. 
While the “regulators” were in the saddle, the Southern Methodists 
were the “lions” and the Northern Methodists the “lambs,” seem¬ 
ingly ready to be led dumb before the shearers. 

But here within thirty days the Southern Methodist preachers 
were on trial, not before mobs, but before about as dangerous a 
crowd as a mob, before provost marshals running the vengeful ma¬ 
chinery of drumhead court-martials; and the Northern Methodist 
brother appeared as “lion” instead of his usual role of the “lamb.” 
John reflected that “every dog has its day,” and was impressed by 
the apparent truth “that all men are made of the same mud,” that 
about all of them show some dog when they get a little power. 
But more of this hereafter. We only say here that Boernstein had 
one of the subterranean rooms at 'the capital full of Southern Metho¬ 
dist preachers, and was proceeding to try them when a peremptory 
telegram from President Lincoln put an end to such disgraceful 
proceedings. 


(107) 





108 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Edward Bates and Abraham Lincoln and Hamilton R. Gamble 
bad been old-line Henry Clay Whigs together, and as such were 
old personal friends. Lincoln was now president, Bates was his 
attorney-general, and Gamble was president pro tempore of the 
Missouri State Constitutional Convention; and, as Sterling Price 
who was its president was then “absent in Arkansas,” Gamble was 
the acting presiding officer. 

Lincoln was greatly opposed to martial law. He got Bates to 
come West to see Gamble as to whether something could not be 
done in a- peaceable and orderly manner to get the capital of Mis¬ 
souri and Missouri itself free from martial law, and under the rule 
of its own civil authorities. Lincoln suggested the calling together 
of the members of the State Constitutional Convention, who had 
been elected by the people of the State as late as February, 1861, free 
from bayonets at the polls. This body had met, refused to secede, 
and adjourned subject to the call of its president. Let this conven¬ 
tion reorganize civil government in Missouri, the former civil gov¬ 
ernment then being on wheels or in camp down in Arkansas. And 
right here it may be remarked that military men generally were op¬ 
posed to the call of a civil body, and proposed “an eye for an eye 
and tooth for tooth” way of running things. 

However, Lincoln urged the call of the convention, saying that 
he would back its action by all the powers of the Government as 
long as it kept Missouri peaceable. 

The convention, against the remonstrance of provost marshals 
and Methodist preachers generally, was called together. By an 
overwhelming majority it declared vacant the office of State gov¬ 
ernor and all other State offices whose occupants had gone off with 
Jackson and Price, and proceeded to fill the same with such old 
Missouri public men as H. R. Gamble as governor, William P. 
Hall as lieutenant-governor, Mordecai Oliver as secretary of state, 
General Geo. C. Bingham as state treasurer, Welsh as attorney- 
general, and Sample Orr as register of lands. 

Wm. C. Mosely, the auditor of public accounts who was elected 
with Jackson in i860, refused to desert his office when Jackson left, 
and was permitted by the convention to hold the same. Perhaps no 
set of men ever selected for office were better calculated to meet, 
not only all the requirements of the office, but of the times, than this 
provisional State Government of Missouri. 

John Counsellor was, by the new secretary of state, appointed 
as chief assistant secretary, and in that relation he was on terms of 


EARLY DAYS OF l86l. 


109 


personal intimacy with all of the members of the State Government. 
In a letter to his father in the latter part of 1863 he thus described 
them: 

Jefferson City, Mo.,- 1863. 

Dear Papa (John never got over his old Virginia way of calling his 
parents “mamma” and “papa”),—You ask me to give you my honest opinion 
of the present State Government, and whether I think they will be able 
to steer the ship of state between the Scylla of “Rebs” on one hand and 
the Charybdis of “Reds” on the other, and whether Lincoln is disposed 
to sustain them in their efforts to conserve law and order? To all of 
which I reply: 1st, That Governor Gamble is an old Virginian by blood, 
an old-school Presbyterian by tradition, and a strong law-and-order man 
by instinct. He is honest, and one of the greatest constitutional lawyers 
in the West. He is absolutely void of malice, and will hew to the line 
of justice and judgment regardless of where the chips may fall. Be as¬ 
sured that as long as he is governor every citizen will be protected in 
all of his rights, and the laws made by the civil authorities will be 
executed. 

There have been tremendous efforts made by the “Reds” to get him 
to embark in a violent course of vengeance against all who do not see 
things as they do. But he is not like a reed that is shaken by the wind. 
He remains firm in his advocacy of law and order as the surest and only 
possible honest way of running public affairs. 

Privately he is as simple as a child, plain as an old farmer, and as 
kindly as a woman. Publicly he is a Roman with Christian instincts. 

You know Governor Hall. The people have often elected him to 
public office, and never found him wanting. If Gamble should die, Hall 
would fill his shoes admirably. Were it not for this I would fear that 
some of the worst of the “Reds” might “remove” him by assassination. 

You also know “our old and our own” Major Oliver. I would speak 
of him more fully than I do, but you know that he has treated me in so 
fatherly a way, that speaking of him would be something like speaking 
of you. I will, however, say that the convention could not have chosen 
a more gentlemanly, a more efficient, or a more influential man for sec¬ 
retary of state than Mordecai Oliver. His long public service in offices 
to which the people of Missouri have so often elected him has given him 
the confidence of men of all parties; and he is a tower of strength in 
the State Government, and has brought to its support many public men 
who otherwise would have been lukewarm. 

The state treasurer, George C. Bingham, is also an old Virginian. 
Perhaps no man in the whole nation has better qualifications for treasurer 
than General Bingham. He is more than honest, as firm as a rock, and 
as polite as any old Virginia gentleman could be. To this date, no 
doubt he could have made over one hundred thousand dollars out of 
things that his office throws in his way without the State losing a cent; 
yet he has made only his salary. 



110 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


The remainder of the state officers are all right. Sample Orr has a 
great deal of old Andrew Jackson honesty and fearless integrity. He 
is said to look like Jackson and to be of near kin to him. At least Orr 
is of Jacksonian build and cast of courage. 

The one officer who was elected on the state tipket with Jackson in 
i860, who is now a member of the State Government, Wm. C. Mosely, 
state auditor, is a paragon public officer, as well as a gentleman. 

General Welch has proved to be all that his most sanguine friends 
predicted for him as attorney-general. 

In fact, with the “Reb” Scylla on the one side and the “Red” 
Charybdis on the other, either ready to wreck the ship of state, perhaps 
no set of men could have steered so clear of both as the present State 
Government. Had we not had such men in command in Missouri of 
state affairs, there would scarcely have been left a secure remnant of 
either life or property. Only the records of Heaven, to be unfolded 
with all things written as they occurred, will ever show how signally 
our State Government saved our people of Missouri from utter destruc¬ 
tion. And it is only the truth to say that, in this supreme and successful 
effort of saving men’s lives and property, instead of destroying them, 
our State Government has been cordially sustained and defended by 
President Lincoln. Very affectionately, 

John Counsellor. 

As assistant secretary of state, John was again convinced that 
the Lord, through His earthly or heavenly angels, provides for His 
own. Having influential friends on both sides of the line, he could 
have obtained honorable positions where laurels might have been 
won at the front, or positions at the rear in commissary or contract 
lines where great riches could have been accumulated. 

But the gruesome scenes amid which he lived on the “Border” 
from 1854 to i860 had so shocked his ideas of Christian civilization 
that, before the first gun in the civil war was fired, he had calmly 
and considerately made up his mind to take no part in the great 
fratricidal struggle. He knew that neither he nor any of his kin¬ 
dred were responsible for the war. He knew that he and all of his 
kindred were in states of heart and intelligence to reason together 
rationally with all citizens of all political faiths about any and all 
public matters, and to settle the same without burning up each 
other's property and murdering each other in detail or by wholesale. 

It is true that he recognized the prevalence of a violence that 
had to be confronted. Yet he also recognized that he was not 
responsible for such violence; and on the principle that vengeance 
belongeth not to man, but to the Lord, and that the righteous are 
exhorted not to stretch forth their hand for vengeance lest they 


EARLY DAYS OF 1 86 1. 


Ill 


hurt themselves; that the wicked are used as weapons for executing 
wrath on the wicked; that all people who pretend to be of the Chris¬ 
tian fold are exhorted, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves; but 
rather give place unto wrath. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, 
feed him, and be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good,” 
and knowing that any overcoming of evil with evil is but a veritable 
bottomless pit; and that he that taketh up the sword shall perish 
by the sword,—knowing such things John gladly entered the civil 
ark found in the office of v the civil department of state. In this 
ark he was lifted above the muddy and bloody waters that deluged 
the land from 1861 to 1865. 

Notwithstanding John was ambitious, and all of his early am¬ 
bitions were shattered by this determination of not worshiping at 
the altar of the' murderous Mars; notwithstanding he was in fu¬ 
turity deprived of participating in the great annual round-ups of 
Grand Army or United Confederate Encampments to get drunk 
periodically on memories of violence, with the net result of vomiting 
up an ever-increasing pension roll on the one hand, and on the 
other hand impotently wallowing in the quagmires of self-glorifica¬ 
tion,—notwithstanding all this, John Counsellor to-day, with forty 
years of observation of the bottomless-pit procedures in overcoming 
evil with evil, is not only content with his choice of enlisting under 
the banner of the Prince of Peace, but is absolutely thankful that 
he did so. 

The faith of John’s Virginia mother as to the disposition of 
slavery is as much superior to the faith of those who by sword 
hoped to dispose of it, as the “Only All-wise God, our Saviour,” 
who was incarnated as the Son of Man, is superior to the god of 
war whose incarnation is ever in “the Beast.” For, after forty 
years in the wilderness, about the only advance that has been made 
toward a healthy and permanent settlement of the African slave 
question is that they are “governed without their consent;” that they 
are being burned at the stake, not of martyrdom, but of lust; that 
they are in the government but not of it; that they feel all the 
shame and suffer all the indignities of an inferior race endeavoring 
to live under the same vine and fig tree of a vastly superior race. 
Yea, like the germs that are foreign to the system, the African ele¬ 
ment is being suppressed in our national body, and, again like the 
germs of disease suppressed in the human system, these alien ele¬ 
ments will inevitably break out in burning fevers and violent par- 


112 


JOHN COUNSELLOR S EVOLUTION. 


oxysms and convulsions. Besides this, the country is over-burdened 
with a national debt that, ever being rolled uphill, returns each year 
in greater volume to the foot hills of the people, to be hopelessly 
pushed up again like the stone of Sisyphus. 

In a civil office John was kept free from the drunkenness that 
inevitably overtakes men who deal in violence and wrath. Socially, 
through his wife who was near of kin to the foremost of the Seces¬ 
sion leaders of Missouri, John came into personal contact with all 
the spheres that surrounded and animated the dis-union elements; 
while, through his own kindred and through the civil State Govern¬ 
ment, he came in contact personally and officially with the radical 
Union elements. And thus seeing and hearing both sides of the case, 
he was enabled to see things as they are seen from the view-point of 
one who looks all around and upon all phases. Sufficient for the 
present to say that he saw things that enabled him in after years to 
understand how mistaken people can be in judging others, and how 
solemnly true it is that all men are much the same when clothed 
with a little brief authority. 

We have seen the part played by some of the Southern Methodist 
clergy during the days before Blair, Boernstein, and the “Dutch’' 
had overthrown the “Border Ruffian” elements in Missouri. They 
breathed out threatening and slaughter, and were the pets if not 
in some cases the “pals” of the “regulators.” During these times 
of impotency, the Northern Methodist brother had the cast-down 
countenance of the persecuted saint, with a look of being “crowded 
on ’ that was so pitiable that it appealed to all men who believed 
in fair play. 

It was this latter feeling that led John Counsellor to form a 
friendship for some of the leading ministers of the Northern Church, 
with the hope that he might be able to do something to bridge the 
bloody gulf between the Southern and Northern factions. This 
hope, after much effort, it may be remarked, was never realized. 
But it gave John a good opportunity of viewing things from a 
better standpoint than he could have done had he never come into 
personal as well as church relations with the Northern Methodist 
clergy. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


REMINISCENCES OF GENERAL STERLING PRICE. 


Reminiscences of General Sterling Price—Price’s Opinion of a Festive 
Occasion of the High Rollers—The Death of Emily—Its Effect on John— 
Thoughts Arising From Visiting Preachers in Prison—Sheridan, the 
Publican, and Stonewall Jackson, the Dervish—Perhaps a Difference 
Between the West Point Professors of War and the Ministrations of the 
Angels of the Prince of Peace. 


Em’s family was closely related to General Sterling Price, and 
during the days just before Price and Jackson left Jefferson City 
John often met the general at the home of Em’s mother. However 
much one might differ politically with “Uncle Sterling,” as Em 
called him, those who came in contact with him in social life could 
not help liking him. While he was not very demonstrative or 
“chatty,” yet he had a sort of kindly and friendly way of talking 
that made one feel that he was a friend. With young men his 
demeanor was that of a father to a son. Hence, during the war 
all the young men in his army called him “Old Pap.” His political 
career had’been a little mixed. He had succeeded John’s father 
as Governor of Missouri. John’s father was governor at the time 
Mr. Calhoun introduced in the United States Senate his celebrated 
State Rights Secession Resolution. Claib Jackson, then a member 
of the Missouri State Legislature, had championed a joint resolu¬ 
tion instructing the Missouri senators, Benton and Atchison, to 
support the Calhoun measure. Governor Counsellor vetoed this 
first move for secession in Missouri, and Senator Benton refused 
to vote for the Calhoun Trojan war measure. The Democratic 
Party divided on the question as to whether a State could secede and 
throw off all relations to the National Government at its own 
pleasure. 

When Governor Price was elected, it was supposed that he was, 
like Governor Counsellor, a Tom Benton and Andrew Jackson 
Democrat and opposed to secession and nullification in all of their 

( 113 ) 


5 





114 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


ominous aspects. But, like Governor Fox Jackson in later years, 
Governor Price, just as soon as he was elected, began to throw all 
of his influence with the Claib-Fox-Jackson Anti-Benton nullifica¬ 
tion democracy; and when Fox Jackson was elected governor, he 
appointed “Old Pap” to a fat office. 

At the February election, 1861, “Old Pap” was elected as a 
straight out “Union man” to the Missouri State Convention, and 
there voted against the State seceding. But as soon as the con¬ 
vention adjourned Claib Fox appointed “Old Pap” as commanding 
general of the Missouri State Guard; and under the manipulation 
of Governor Jackson and General Price, this Guard was wheeled 
into the service of the Montgomery Confederate Government, as far 
as it could be wheeled. 

Still General Price was greatly indisposed to have Missouri go 
into the war. He had been an officer in the Mexican War and 
thus had a taste of war, and knew that it was no May-day picnic 
recreation. His anticipations of it were altogether dissimilar from 
those of the merry-hearted daughter, who immortalized herself by 
her zeal, which found vent in the ever familiar words, “O mother, 
wake me early, for to-morrow’s the first of the May.” 

Price did not hanker after being “waked early” to go into the 
war. A little incident will show his drift of mind. Early in the 
spring, before the taking of Camp Jackson, there had been a rally 
at Jefferson City of all the high-rolling young officers of the Mis¬ 
souri State Guard. The whole affair seemed to be a picnic oc¬ 
casion. From all parts of the State, the well-dressed, dashing- 
looking young lieutenants and captains who afterwards rode with 
Shelby and fought with Marmaduke, or in some cases became 
guerrillas with Quantrell, came like plumed eagles to the capital 
city. From the counties of Platte and Jackson, in the Border 
Ruffian regions, to Cape Girardeau and Ste. Genevieve about the 
“negro-wool swamps,” the high-born and haughty girls of the old 
proslavery regime came also to this great “round up” of “brave 
men and fair women.” It is true that these proslavery beauties 
did not come like the young gallants, with banner, brand, and bow; 
but they came with hearts all afire and eyes all aglow, arrayed in 
garments that were only equaled in glory by the magnificent bouquets 
with which their hands were filled for joyous bestowment on the 
eager knights of the coming cause of a Confederacy that, in the 
picturesque language of a haughty rebel belle, in her pretty little 


REMINISCENCES OF GENERAL STERLING PRICE. 


115 


speech in presenting to Captain K’s company a company flag, 
should eclipse every classical predecessor. 

“A coming Confederacy,” said the young beauty, “that will 
outvie Rome in the valor of its men; that will eclipse the classical 
culture of Greece in the Arcadian modesty of its mothers; and 
whose young men and maidens will again usher in the golden age 
of the world, when love for one another out of hearts without 
commercial guile was the end of all things: A Confederacy in 
whose country wealth will be gained, not from the grease and 
turmoil of factories with their begrimed minions; but from the soil, 
through which the heavens themselves in princely munificence will 
pour their gifts to a race of patrician men who will from generation 
to generation be like bridegrooms going forth to run races along 
the highways of noble ambition and classical culture.” 

While the rebel beauties from the highlands and from the 
lowlands, in their frocks of Babylonian scarlet and purple, added 
splendor to the outer world, the local capitolian lasses added cheer 
to the inner man by a profusion of viands that were only equaled in 
abundance by the scarcity in after time of any sort of edibles in 
the “parched corn” and “blackberry” larders of the actual Con¬ 
federacy. 

In fact, the whole affair had the air and the aroma of a bridal 
festivity. Yet, amid all the careless gayety, General Sterling Price 
was seen to shed tears in seclusion, and on one occasion he remarked: 

“These young men do not know what war is. It is a desolate 
and deathly affair at best. These girls will weep twice where they 
sing and dance once now. May something avert war, should be 
the prayer of us all.” 

The general seemed utterly sad, yet he went into the storm of 
mingled burning and blood and bayonets and bullets, and remained 
in it to the last! 

He has passed into the spiritual world. He there has all of the 
experience that he gained in the Mexican and the great Civil War. 
His career with-its sudden careenings only shows that men, however 
strong, are but “reeds shaken” of this and that wind. His whole 
career demonstrates that he was really a man of peace, of quiet, and 
of neighborly instinct; and there is but little doubt that when he 
went to the world of spirits, the place of judgment where the hay, 
dross, and stubble in every man are separated from the gold and 
silyer in him, his experience in the Mexican and Civil Wars enabled 


116 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


him to decide against engaging in any more bloody wars; for in 
that world they have wars as in this; for wars are on all planes 
of life where the tares and wheat, or the goats and sheep come in 
contact. And more especially is this true on planes where all are 
goats or all are tares. The world of spirits has in it a mingled 
population of good and bad not yet judged, and . separated, and 
assigned homes. The hells are tares and goats pure and simple. 

Being interiorly a man of peace, General Price in the world of 
judgment would take the side of law and order against “hell turned 
loose,” as war is, and he would be saved from his warrior-like weak¬ 
ness, from which all must necessarily be delivered before they can 
be admitted into the house of the Prince of Peace as angels in 
heaven. That General Price was essentially an orderly man may be 
seen in another part of this story, where John has an interview with 
Captain Celsus Price, his son. This son in after years went to the 
far east, and amid the solitudes of Persia became an adept of that 
oriental occultism of which Madame Blavatsky was one of the 
prophetesses. Of Captain Celsus Price we shall see more hereafter. 

Emily’s health, never strong, amid the blare and glare of 1861, 
failed rapidly. On her account John gave himself altogether to 
attending to the duties of his civil office at the capital, scarcely ever 
alluding to the war. He rarely even read the accounts of the great 
battles that took place in the summer of that year, such as Wilson’s 
Creek in Missouri and Bull Run in Virginia. On a beautiful day 
in the spring of 1862 Em passed from earth to the life above. Her 
death staggered John greatly, and made him shut his eyes and stop 
his ears more closely to the things of war and to apply himself more 
devotedly to his civil duties, as well as to works of charity, such 
as visiting prisoners in the military prisons and doing everything 
possible to soften the asperities of the fratricidal strife then raging 
on sea and land. The Bible, was his sole study. It may be added 
that he visited several Southern Methodist ministers who were under 
arrest for acts of disloyalty. Pie was somewhat struck at finding 
that these preachers were, perhaps, a little more haughty and stiff¬ 
necked than the ordinary run of military prisoners of that day. It 
was about this time that John began to enter really into the 
genuine light of the true religion of the Prince of Peace; and any 
expression of a so-called Christian minister favoring or in any wise 
glorifying war struck him as unpleasantly as the sight of a woman 
drunk and cursing. 


REMINISCENCES OF GENERAL STERLING PRICE. 


117 


Such an impression did a dervish-like preacher, shrieking and 
howling for war, make on John at this time that never in all after 
years would he go to hear any preacher who, either at a Grand 
Army Encampment or at a United Confederate Reunion, glorified 
Mars and with lungs of brass bellowed the praises of men whose 
only merit was that they were more successful than others in shed¬ 
ding blood and wasting the substance of their neighbor. He had 
a lively hope that such men as Lincoln on one side and Lee on the 
other had some genuine Christian religion, enough, perhaps, as 
hidden leaven to save them in the great day of final account. But 
this hope was based, not on the number of men they had killed and 
the number of towns destroyed, but on their well-known sadness 
of heart at having to hurt any one at all! 

John used to say that about the only difference between the two 
dashing leaders, Phil Sheridan and Stonewall Jackson, was that 
Sheridan was an outright publican and regarded “war as hell 
while Stonewall Jackson was a kind of religious zealot, like a 
Mohammedan dervish, who would go into war with a black-flag 
spirit shouting the praise of Allah! And that, as between the two, 
the dashing publican had a better chance of being on the side of the 
Prince of Peace than did the praying dervish. This because the 
publican recognized war as hell, and the dervish recognized it as a 
thing on which Christians might enter with great glory, killing as 
many people as possible! 

John realized what the Prince of Peace meant when he said 
that publicans and harlots would enter the kingdom of heaven before 
a set of children of the kingdom, so called, who thought they were 
serving God in killing others. Such mistakes are fatal to any 
citizenship in < the realms of the Prince of Peace. Sheridan, the 
outright publican, who recognized war as hell, in the other life when 
the books are opened, would probably be brought much sooner to 
recognize evil and eschew it, than a dervish of the Soudan who on 
earth mingled his prayers and his thanksgiving with the shedding of 
blood. 

In the world to come it is more difficult to separate a man from 
the dross that is within him, if on earth he has made that dross— 
through mistaken religious zeal—take the place of the silver and 
gold. This every man does who justifies and glories in the things 
necessarily belonging to the sons of Mars, and which do not belong 
to the sons of God! 


118 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


But John thought that either Sheridan, the outright publican 
and sinner, or Jackson, the ever successful and fearless dervish, had 
a better show of being enlisted under the banners of the Prince of 
Peace than had any preacher who would set the hearts of his flock 
in flames with the exceedingly false fire that is strange to the Spirit 
of the Prince of Peace, such fire as a large majority of both “Red" 
and “Reb" preachers brought to the altars of worship during the 
bloody moons of our Civil War, and still shovel out at all of the 
“Old Soldier Reunions." 

It is true that so common is it for so-called ministers of the 
Prince of Peace to turn aside and worship at the altars of Mars— 
even as the Israelites continually went aside to worship the gods of 
the heathen—that the great prevalence of such strange worship has 
made it seem somewhat right; as the running with a multitude to 
commit any sin makes that sin appear to be right. 

But John always held that, however appearances might be, no 
disciple of Mars ever became a child of the Prince of Peace in the 
Father’s house of Love, who went up there from a life of killing his 
fellow-man. However, he thought that doubtless all well-meaning 
soldiers when taken away from the ministration of the West Point 
and Annapolis professors of war, and from carnal earthly preachers, 
and placed under the ministration of the angels of the Prince of 
Peace, as is the case with all who from the earth enter into judg¬ 
ment in the “world of spirits," will be saved bv the angels separating 
the tares of Mars from the wheat of Jesus; both of which are found 
in each and every heart. 

But John could never see how a war preacher could be saved 
unless, when placed under the instruction of angels, he would learn 
the exceeding error of his ways and would deeply repent of his 
grievous sin and learn the ways of righteousness as taught in all the 
colleges of all climes, whether in heaven or on earth, where Christ, 
as the Prince of Peace, is the ruler. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


SOCIAL LIFE AT THE MISSOURI STATE CAPITAL DURING 
THE CIVIL WAR. A LESSON IN STATESMANSHIP 
TO BE LEARNED FROM IT. 


The Little Lord Fauntleroj's and the Mademoiselle Consuelo Van¬ 
derbilts of the Outgoing Regime, and the Men and Women of the “Hoi 
Polloi”—“Rebs” and “Reds” Not Much in Favor—The “Committee of 
Invitation” of Rebel Rosebuds—John in His Role of “Overcoming Evil 
With Good”—The Daguerreotype Among the Bric-a-Brac of the Rollins’ 
Mansion Center-Table Appears as a Reality—Attempt to be Fixed as a 
Star in the Heavens of Another—The “Destructive” and “Constructive” 
Elements Run Up Against Each Other. 


Perhaps not in the whole country, North and South, was there 
such a social earthquake as the one that took place at the Missouri 
State capital as one of the incidents, if not effects, of the great Civil 
War. Since the going out of political power of the old-time Jeffer¬ 
sonian and Jacksonian democracy, which occurred with the ad¬ 
ministration of John’s father, Governor Counsellor, in the early 
fifties, there had been gathering about the State capital a very 
haughty and high-stepping proslavery aristocracy, the “belles’’ and 
“beaux” of which completely dominated in their turn all the sociai 
salons. The beaux of this aristocracy were naturally high strung, 
which, added to their assumed superiority over mere “plain people,” 
made Little Lord Fauntleroys of the younger brood, and of its 
young men it made a dashing gentry of the Navarre and Chevalier 
Bayard type; while of its older men it made an uncompromising 
class of ambitious “rule-or-ruin” brilliant Burrs and conscientious 
Catalines. 

Corresponding with these high-instepped Little Lord Fauntle¬ 
roys, Chevalier Bayards, and revolutioning senatorial Catalines, 
there were the Mademoiselles Consuelo Vanderbilts of proslaverv 
pelf, and the Mesdames DeStaels of proslavery pride, even in the 
rustle of whose silken petticoats there was the charm of music, to 


( 119 ) 





120 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


say nothing of that peculiarly persuasive tone of voice and that 
peculiar expression of countenance that differentiate the high- 
bounding blood of a princess from the sullen slough water of a 
parvenu. 

Somehow or other, as far toward the Polar Seas as Missouri 
was situated, all of the hot blood that surged in the veins of the 
Calhouns and Rhetts and Yanceys and Bob Toombs of the far-away 
South, seemingly without obstruction and with congenial flow, 
poured itself through the hearts of these Missouri proslavery prop¬ 
agandists ; and not only fired their hearts with the lust of domina¬ 
tion, but filled their dreams with visions of the spread of what they 
deemed the “balm of civilization for barbarism,” not only to the 
prairies of Kansas, but to the very shadow of Bunker Hill itself! 

Such dreams of the coming Kingdom of .Slavery were every¬ 
where indulged in as though it were the coming of some Messiah. 
Even a somewhat cold-blooded propagandist would indulge in such 
flights of fancy as did one of the speakers of an “On to Kansas” 
meeting at Lexington, Missouri, when he said: 

“Kansas being consecrated to slavery, then comes Nebraska; 
then the half-dozen States that are to be framed out of the territory 
between the prairies of Kansas and Nebraska and the Golden Gate 
that overlooks the Pacific. Then, turning northward, we shall 
civilize all the country to Puget’s Sound; and thence eastward the 
course of civilization will sweep back again over the mountains, 
cross the great valleys, and the dream of our great Senator Toombs 
will be realized by hearing the benign master of slaves civilized 
and redeemed from barbarism, call his slave roll evening and morn¬ 
ing under the shadow of Bunker Hill!” 

How it was possible to conquer such a lordly and lording set 
of men, whose nostrils continually inhaled the exhalations of praise 
shed like the very sunshine, from such hot-bosomed women as were 
their daughters, sisters, sweethearts, wives, and mothers,—how it 
was possible to overthrow such men—the Naptons, the Greens, the 
Jacksons, the Prices, the Ewings, the Shelbys, the Stringfellows, 
the Cockrells, the Vests, the little Lord Fauntleroys, and the 
Navarres and Bayards of all this school, they could not dream! 
They never had even a suspicion of defeat. 

Not one of these ever dreamed at any one of their great 
Belshazzar feasts that fate was just writing “Mene, mene, tekel 
upharsin,” on the walls of their palaces of power and pride. 


SOCIAL LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 


121 


And that such a babboon as an uncouth, rail-splitting Illinois 
plebeian, should overthrow and throw out of the governing realm 
such a prodigy of chivalry as was to be found in the Mississippi 
patrician enthroned in the presidential chair among the magnolias 
’of the Montgomery capital,—such a thing as this was not for a 
moment thought of by any of their sweethearts or wives. 

How such men, in all the purple of pride and upheld by the 
warm hearts of so many tropically zoned fair women, fought and 
died, is a wonder even to their enemies'! Perhaps at the great roll- 
call at the final “round-up” of the “Life Beyond” there will be no 
greater sin for which the preachers who fired the Southern heart 
will be called on to answer, than having taken such material for 
good as was to be found in the heart of Southern manhood and 
kindling it with the “strange fire” of rebellion against a government 
which even they themselves had dominated for generations, which 
attempt all now admit was not only ill considered, but would have 
been utterly disastrous if it had succeeded. The universal senti¬ 
ment of the South is that it has been good for all that the attempt 
failed. 

The tremendous energy, the unexcelled bravery that bordered 
on desperation itself, displayed by the proslavery sons of the South, 
—what might it not have accomplished had it been spent in some 
great cause for humanity at large, such as the overthrow of plu¬ 
tocracy and the setting free of the labor and the homes and the com¬ 
merce and the common country of all the sons of men! 

My God! To think of what might have been accomplished had 
the fervor, the affection, the high-pulsing love of the high-blooded 
Southern women been sacrificed in the interest of the Prince of 
Peace, instead of being poured as brimstone on the altars of Mars! 

In coming years, at the great crises of civil commotion, let the 
clergy, let the possessors of political prestige, let all civilized Chris¬ 
tian people, beware how they divert the immense wealth of culture 
and affection of the nation into wrong'channels, as the Roosevelts 
of the sword and the pampered lady pets of the Plutocracy are t6- 
day in the fatally mistaken effort to do. 

But to our story of social life at the proslavery capital. For 
a generation the proslavery aristocracy had been in full sway. But 
early in the sixties the proslavery sun began to get low, and another 
sun was to rise on a new day, the “morning” of which, like the 
days of Genesis, succeeded “the evening,” when the evening and the 
morning were “the first day” of a new age. 


122 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


The evening of a departing day of chaos and confusion is 
succeeded by morning after the darkness caused by such chaos has 
spent its force for evil. 

At the government offices at the capital old “fire eaters” had 
given way to men of the aiiream mediocritatem school. The fiery 
(if not foxy) Jackson had given way to the calm and considerate 
Presbyterian elder, Gamble. With perhaps one single exception, 
a whole State government of purblind political partisans had given 
way to the patriots of the people. 

About the arsenals and in the “shoulder-strapped” places of 
power, the captains of a cotton confederacy had given way to the 
lieutenants of one who proclaimed a government of the people, by 
the people, and for the people. The Chevalier Bayards were mostly 
“absent in Arkansas,” and their places were filled by plain Johns 
and Georges, whose neighborly qualities greatly outweighed the 
gaudy quicksteps of the mere Beau Brummels. As counselors 
visiting the capital, the Stringfellows had given way to the Rollinses; 
the Vests had given way to the Blairs; the Naptons to the Nortons; 
and the J. T. V. Thompsons had been supplanted by the Doniphans 
and Mosses; and the Border Ruffians had been succeeded by the 
Counsellors. Not, however, until the last year of the war had the 
“l^eb” given way to the “Red;” but the “Reb” had given way to 
law and order, and special franchise to none and equal rights to 
all peaceable citizens, which were the characteristics of the Con¬ 
stitutional State Government of this Border Ruffian State adminis¬ 
tered from July, 1861, to January, 1865. 

For some years there seemed to be an impassable gulf between 
the lordlings and ladies of the old regime and the men and women 
of the new. But the men and women of the law and order State 
government kept such good faith with all, that soon the bloody 
chasm became first passable, then actually passed over, and eventually 
filled up altogether. 

Under this considerate administration of State affairs, all of 
which was upheld by Mr. Lincoln, war had disappeared from the 
neighborhood of the State capital. The gallant with Union “shoulder 
straps” was cordially invited to and warmly received in the homes 
of the most rabid Secession ladies; and we may say that many of 
of the high-spirited and hot-hearted Southern girls went so far even 
as to become the wives of the “Lieutenants of Lincoln.” 


SOCIAL LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 


123 


On one occasion John was present at a meeting of a committee 
on invitations composed of some of the ladies of the select “upper 
ten” who were getting up a “sociable.” This was in the year 1863. 
None but the flower of the fast-fading regime was preseilt. It was 
a kind of a creme-de-la-creme assembly of the proud but warm¬ 
hearted girls who had in days gone by danced and flirted, laughed 
and chatted, with the chevaliers of the Southern cause. A little 
part of the proceedings of this committee will show, perhaps in a 
better way than could otherwise be done, how pleasantly old things 
may give way to new ones, especially where the new ones offer some¬ 
thing that savors of kindliness and goodness to all concerned. 

The committee was called to order. A near kinswoman of 
John’s then dead wife was chairman. Miss Anna E., whose personal 
fortune was afterward united in the closest and holiest of bonds 
with that of a United States senator, was secretary. After disposing 
of the question of when and where the “sociable” was to be held, 
there came up the most important question of all, “Whom shall 
we invite?” 

A pretty rebel “rosebud” whose better nature, as well as better 
sense, had not yet bloomed out, who is yet alive and whose name 
is omitted for that reason, arose and said: 

“I move, Mr. President, that we invite no one who is not in 
sympathy with our Southern cause.” 

And in support of this motion, she went on to say: 

“What would Ashley, who is with Price, think of our club 
president dancing with a Yankee? How would General C. feel 
if he should see our pretty secretary flirting with a Lincolnite 
colonel ? Through the grapevine post-office route I got a letter 
from—well, you all know from whom— The letter was from one 
of General Parsons’ boys in camp down in Arkansas. I will read 
you a part of it. 

Dear Rosebud: 

We boys down here have heard that some of our Southern girls that we 
left as sweethearts are getting mighty thick with the Yankee fellows. How do 
you think I’d feel to hear that you were ever looking at a Yankee as you 
used to look at me? The mere thought of you letting a Yankee look at you, 
let alone you looking at the Yankee, nearly runs me mad. What, oh, my 
darling would I do, if I thought that a Yankee, even in a dance, had his 
arms around you, just as I would like to have mine around you now? Why, 
I’d just shoot my brains out.” 


124 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


Now, it must be admitted that, had it not been the case that 
a big majority of the girls on this committee had come in personal 
contact with the young men about the State capital, and the young 
officers of the Missouri State Militia, and had found them to be not 
only human beings, but humane—not only men, but gentlemen,— 
and while not “Secesh” yet with all the instincts of true Southern 
manhood,—had it not been for this fact there is no doubt that the 
motion of pretty pouting Miss “Rosebud” would have carried; but, 
as it was, it did not even so much as receive a second in good faith. 
However, in order that she might offer some remarks on the subject, 
the president of the club asked the secretary to take the chair, and 
said: 

“I will second Miss Rosebud's motion, not that I favor it, but 
that it may be got before the committee so that I can offer some 
remarks on the subject. You all know my relations to the Southern 
cause. My kindred are commanding some of its armies. Some of 
you know the specially friendly relations existing before the war, 
and existing now, between some of the young men in General Price’s 
gallant army and myself; and I will say that, if you all knew my 
real, honest feelings, you would know that I would give even my 
life if I thought that would make it right and make it possible for 
the establishment of our Southern Confederacy. I confess that my 
heart is one way and my head another. Out of my heart I would 
choose that our men succeed; but the Bible says we are fools to 
trust to our hearts or our feelings uncontrolled by our head. You 
all here know John Counsellor. I have seen him every day since 
the war began, because he boards at our house. You all know he 
is a gentleman. Besides, John seems to know more about the Bible 
than most of our preachers. John says that when we 'spiritually 
discern,’ or get the practical spiritual truth contained in the declara¬ 
tion made to Eve, that ‘thy desire shall be unto thy husband and 
he shall rule over thee,’ we must believe that our hearts—our 
feelings, which Eve represents—must be controlled by our* heads, 
by our better judgment. John says that, while a woman is as 
good, if not better, than a man, yet that one’s feelings are not as 
safe a guide as one’s cool judgment. Now, we all from experience 
know that it will not do to follow after our feelings merely, but 
that we must subject them to the control of knowledge and reason, 
and that the decision of a well-informed, cool, and considerate 
head is better than the mere impulse of passion and feeling; and 


SOCIAL LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 


125 


we must recognize that so far do feelings go astray as often to 
confirm the scriptural declaration, ‘The fool saith in his heart there 
is no God,’ and ‘He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool; but 
whoso walketh wisely shall be delivered/ Wisdom is of the head, 
but passion is of the heart. We must 'cease from mere Passion 
Plays! 

“So about this matter. We must exercise judgment. We 
must appeal to the dictates of wisdom, and not to the impulses 
of passion. Doing this, we shall recognize merit and honor and 
bravery wherever we find them, whether in Confederate or Federal 
bosoms. How many of us have found friends and protectors in 
such men as Governor Gamble and General Bingham? Why, even 
Abe Lincoln told Mrs. Brentwood, when she went to see him about 
the pardon of her son Charley, who was under sentence of death 
as a ‘guerrilla/ that ‘he would pardon every bushwhacker in the 
woods and rebel soldier, in the Southern army if he believed that 
they would become peaceable citizens / and, notwithstanding Charley 
was one of Quantrell’s most dare-devil lieutenants, that for his 
mother’s sake and on her word that her son would go home and 
go to work to help his mother, he would more than gladly pardon 
him.. And he did pardon him. Mrs. Brentwood said that Secretary 
of War Stanton tore up the-order for the pardon of her son which 
President Lincoln had sent him by her hands. She was in despair, 
and thought that this had been arranged between the President and 
the vengeful Secretary of War. But when she went back to Mr. 
Lincoln and reported what Mr. Stanton had done, the President, 
with a kind of sad, far-away look, said: 

“ ‘Well, my daughter, Mr. Stanton is often overvexed, but he 
is not quite as influential in matters of this kind as a good mother 
with a son’s life at stake, when backed by even a third-rate President. 
I will write you a personal order to General Halleck, commanding 
the Department of Missouri, to release your son and furnish you 
and him transportation to your home/ 

“This the President did. This kindness has been repeated a 
thousand times by a man against whom, in the beginning, we all 
had bitter feelings, even so bitter as to call him a ‘gorilla,’ an 
uncouth ‘babboon,’ a vulgar ‘buffoon,’ and similar ugly names. We 
then trusted to our feelings—to the unwisdom within us that is be¬ 
guiled by the seduction of the serpent of passion. We then had 
zeal without knowledge, which all know to be a dangerous condition, 


126 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


as dangerous as a mighty steam-engine without a safety-valve and 
without a capable engineer. So far as I can see, if the mothers of 
the South should be deaf to the great tender tones that have been 
heard by thousands of them in the sad but firm words of the Federal 
President, as he has uttered and reuttered and continues to utter in 
words of fatherly kindness, such as he spoke to our friend, Mrs. 
Brentwood, they will be not human. ‘A good mother with the help 
of a third-rate President can run this government so far as saving 
the lives of its children is concerned. So, my daughter, here is an 
order for saving the life of your boy.’ ” 

Here Mrs. Brentwood, who was present, rose and said that 
the facts as stated by the last speaker were true in every particular. 

Another speaker then said that if such appeals as those stated 
by Mrs. Brentwood found no response of good will from all true 
Southern womanhood, such womanhood would be more despicable 
than its bitterest traducers could possibly accuse it of being. 

Another rebel beauty, whose betrothed was in the tanglewoods 
of a Louisiana Campus Martitis, said she would not be ashamed for 
her betrothed to be conquered by such brave and generous men as 
she had found among the Federal soldiers. She then related a case 
where, up in Jackson County, some camp followers of a Federal 
army division had come to her father’s house, he being away in the 
Southern army. These camp followers were in the act of robbing 
the house of such articles of furniture and apparel as they could 
carry off, when the general commanding the division happened 
along and had them all arrested, bucked and gagged, and thrown 
into a freight wagon, like so many hogs, with instructions to his 
chief of staff to see that they be tried and punished with the severest 
penalty known to the army regulations of all respectable govern¬ 
ments. 

Dozens of such things were related by these daughters of the 
South. Even our hero, John, was unwillingly made a witness of 
the fact that principle and not passion actuated the lives of many 
who were known as Union men. Miss Anna E., whose father was 
a noted rebel sympathizer and a very talented and influential public 
man, then resided at the capital. Miss Anna and John were born on 
adjoining farms in one of the Border Ruffian counties, and were on 
familiar terms of personal friendship. This Border Ruffian belle, 
who afterward became a very popular leader of society at the Federal 
national capital, as the wife of a distinguished United States Senator, 
said to the committee: 


SOCIAL LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 


127 


“I wish to add my mite to the sentiment that there are some 
people outside of those who side with us in this war that are worthy 
of our association and high regard. Now, there is a little personal 
thing that I am going to mention which appertains to my friend 
John Counsellor and to my father. I do not think that John knows 
that I know these facts; and if I mistake them, he will please correct 
me. 

“Directly before the battle of Lexington John’s venerable father 
was living on his farm, some six.miles north of Lexington. General 
Price’s army was then in southwestern Missouri en route for Lex¬ 
ington. A band of recruits from northwestern Missouri, headed 
by a guerrilla captain, passed by the home of John’s father on their 
way to Price’s army, arrested Judge Counsellor, and took him along 
with them as a prisoner. My father and John’s had both been 
judges, and both had held distinguished civil positions before the 
war. The Federal general then commanding at Jefferson City, 
knowing John and knowing of his father’s arrest and detention as a 
prisoner in Price’s army, sent for John and said: 

“ ‘ John, I have official knowledge, through my secret detective 
agents, that Sterling Price has your father as a prisoner in his camp; 
and that he is not receiving that treatment that one of his age and 
one of his unblemished public life deserves. I even hear that some 
of the ‘hangers-on’ and camp followers threaten his life. At any 
rate, Claib Jackson, who is his old inveterate political foe, says that 
he must be carried down into Arkansas and given a diet of acorns 
and swamp water, which he hopes will put a final quietus on his 
so-called appeals to the ‘Union, now and forever’ sentiment. Now, 
you say the word, and I will at once issue an’order for the arrest 
of Judge E. and any other half-dozen rebel sympathizers that you 
may name, and hold them as hostages for the safe keeping and early 
release of your father.’ 

“To this I heard that John replied to the general, that if he 
should cause the arrest of men who were at home and not in arms, 
he would be in the same fix as the desperadoes who had arrested 
his father; and that he would give to the families of those whom 
he caused to be arrested the same ground of just complaint as he 
had against the cowardly set who had arrested his father at his 
peaceable home; and that, while he greatly thanked the general for 
his expressions of kindly interest in the welfare of his father, he 
must oppose the arrest of non-combatants, especially when his re- 


128 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


lations to those non-combatants and their families were of a per¬ 
sonally friendly kind. He would trust to other means for the safety 
of his father than the ‘eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth’ way 
of overcoming evil by another evil.” 

Here Miss Anna, calling upon John, asked him if the facts as 
stated by her were true, to which John replied that he was glad to 
say that they were; and further said: 

“Suppose I had caused the arrest of Miss Anna’s father, and 
Miss F.’s brother-in-law, and the fathers of two other bright-eyed, 
friendly looking girls that I see here in this committee, how ever¬ 
lastingly little would I feel just at this moment! But as it is, though 
differing from you politically as the east differs from the west, I 
can look into your open eyes with a feeling that I am your brother 
and you are my sisters, and—and”—here John looked one of the 
Southern beauties squarely in the face and continued laughingly— 
“some day might find it exquisitely pleasant to be a leetle nearer’ 
to some of you than a brother is to a sister.” 

With a kind of “good for John” applause the committee voted 
down unanimously the motion of the little Rebel Rosebud, and pro¬ 
ceeded to invite all of the respectable young men of the city to their 
“Sociable” regardless of political differences. This was the closing 
up of the “chasm.” 

A little episode occurred here which it might be well to relate 
as incidental to an almighty factor that soon was to enter, not the 
units or tens column, but the many millions column, of John’s 
problem of life. Having disposed of the list of “gentlemen” to be 
invited, the question then was, what ladies, or rather “what girls,” 
shall be invited? 

Even up to this day there had been somewhat strained relations 
between what were known as the “rebel” and the “union” girls of 
the city. Without giving the particulars of this, it will be sufficient 
to say that when the name of Clara B., the daughter of a noted 
Unionist, came to pass the muster for invitation, the President of 
the Club said: 

“Why, yes; if all knew Clara as I know her, we should invite 
her, even if she added to her love of the Union the raving rabies 
of a John Brown abolitionist, which she does not. There is some¬ 
thing peculiarly distinguished looking about this quiet yet talented 
girl. It is hard to tell what it is, but it once and for all stamps her 


SOCIAL LIFE AT THE CAPITAL. 


129 


as of a nobility that even our proud old Southern mothers would 
like to have their daughters kin to, and their sons to woo and wed.” 

This was the same “little Clara” whose daguerreotype John had 
seen when a student at the University, where it was lying on a center 
table at the Rollins’ mansion. 

It may be said that, at this particular time, John’s only interest 
in this girl of the peculiar but indefinable look of a princess of royal 
blood, was that he was playing the part toward her that the envoy 
of a king plays in the courtship of a foreign princess. John was 
actually courting her for a “rebel” general—General James S. H.— 
and John had put the president of the “Invitation Committee” up 
to seeing that Clara B. was invited for the sake of the said rebel 
general, who was then at home as one of the many “stay-at-homes” 
engaged in making more money out of the war than could be made 
out of peace. 

Thousands of such incidents as the above might be recited 
illustrative of social life at a Border Ruffian State capital. The ones 
cited are merely for the purpose of showing the hues and the 
strength of the golden thread that runs through our story, of how 
evil may be overcome by good, and that conservatives of the golden- 
mean school, such as Lincoln and the Missouri State Government, 
did much, perhaps much more than did the “Reds,” to restore unity 
and harmony among the people. The “Reds” were destructive, 
but the conservatives were constructive; and the destruction of the 
“Reds” would have gone on with an unquenchable hell of hate and 
vengeance, had it not been for the constructive qualities of the men 
of the golden mean. 

The words of Grant at Appomattox did more to conciliate 
strong men than his parks of cannon had ever been able to do. 
The act of Horace Greeley in going on the bail bond of Jefferson 
Davis had more life-giving balm than all his half-century of philip¬ 
pics against slavery and slave-holders had ever had in their fierce 
blasts of death and damnation! 

The conservative State Government of Missouri, elected by a 
convention of its own people at an untrammeled free election, did 
more for the people of Missouri than all of the military satraps and 
consuls and proconsuls sent out as carpet-bag rulers from the 
Federal Rome into the Southern province ever did, or ever could do, 
for any State; and this Missouri State Government was made up of 
neither “Rebs” nor “Reds” nor carpet-baggers! 


130 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


It would have been pre-eminently for the public good had 
carpet-bag government never been resorted to. Mr. Lincoln was 
the wisest and, though not even of any ecclesiastical relation, the 
most Christian-spirited of all our Presidents. It was he that first 
suggested the substitution of the Civil State Government under the 
guidance of the Presbyterian elder, Gamble, in place of the provost- 
marshal regime that was set up at Jefferson City when Jackson fled. 
Lincoln knew the genius of genuine Democracy, which is that people 
should be served by public servants of the same kith and kin as 
themselves, and as far as possible chosen by themselves. Had 
Lincoln survived the Civil War there would have been no carpet¬ 
baggers placed in power in any part of the country; for he knew 
that such a procedure would be a crime against the ideal of such 
a government as he prayed for,—“a government of the people, by 
the people, and for the people.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


NEWSPAPER MAN ON MARRIAGE. A BEVY OF REAL ANGELS. 


About Marriage in General—About Second Marriages—Second Mar¬ 
riages That Are Adulterous, and Those That Are Pure and Virtuous— 
John Taken “Charge of by the Angels”—A Personal Description of These 
“Angels”—One Not a “Finical Fool”—One Might be Taken for a “Real 
Angel.” 


The newspaper reporter who, at an afternoon session of the 
Athenian Society at the State University, had handed to John “the 
statement” that there is but One God, and that the Lord Jesus Christ 
is this one “only wise God,” had, in the general break-up of things, 
floated to the capital city. Although, up to this date, the late fall 
of 1863, John had eyes that were looking, he had not as yet seen, 
or understood, the great truth contained in that remarkable state¬ 
ment. 

One afternoon our newspaper reporter dropped into the secre¬ 
tary’s office. The business of the day was over, and no one except 
John was in the office. It is due the reporter to say that he was 
not a “proselyter,” neither would he ever push drink on one that 
was not thirsty. Hence he never foisted his views on one beyond 
throwing out a casual remark or handing some little leaflet or state¬ 
ment which he called “leaves of life for the healing of the nations.” 

In the course of a general talk John said to him: 

“Do you recollect, doctor, one afternoon over at Columbia, 
when you handed to me a printed statement about all the fullness 
of the Godhead being in Christ?” 

“Well, yes,” replied the doctor; “I saw from what you said 
in your debate that you probably had independence of mind sufficient 
to think outside of and undeterred by the traditions or creeds of 
the ecclesiastical elders. So I gave you the statement you allude 
to. I did not then think that I was casting seed by the way side, 
but that I was sowing by waters that would cause a harvest some 
day. After these many days, how is it with you?” 

(131) 





132 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“To tell the exact truth, doctor, I hardly know how it is,” re¬ 
plied John. “Some one, and I suspect it was you, sent me a ‘leaflet 
for the healing of the nations' in which it was stated that the first 
chapter of Genesis is an exact description, not of the creation of the 
material world, but of the regeneration of the ‘new man,’ which 
we all must become in going through the Christian regeneration. 
Now, if this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, my present 
status is about that in the line of progress of which it is stated: 
‘God said, Let there be light, and there was light; and the evening 
and the morning were the first day.’ 

“Now, while I confess that the light which I am in is not like 
that of either the sun or the moon, which did not come until the 
fourth day, yet I see somewhat in a glass darkly; and really have 
seen a good many things in the light of the first day that I never 
saw before.” 

The newspaper man laughed cheerfully, and said: 

“Good for you, John! Go on. Your light will increase unto 
the perfect day. ‘They that follow on to know shall know.’ I 
think you will finally go all the steps of the six days of creation. 
But you will find in each that the evening is always before the 
morning.” 

“What, doctor, is the meaning of that rather singular state¬ 
ment that ‘the evening and the morning’ were such and such a day, 
—evening being always mentioned as preceding morning?” asked 
John. 

“Well,” said the doctor. “ ‘Evening’ is the end of an old state 
of life, and morning is the beginning of a new one. The first day 
of one undergoing regeneration is like that on which the earth is 
described as being ‘without form and void,’ with darkness upon the 
face of things. This state is the evening of one’s earthly pride, his 
carnal ‘know it all,’ his stuck-up idea of himself as needing nothing. 
This must lapse into a state of feeling of unworthiness in the sight 
of God, into a knowledge of our own weakness, of our inability 
to keep the daughters of music from being brought low and the 
doors from being shut in the street. Just in this ‘evening state’ 
comes the Spirit of God and moves upon the darkness and desola¬ 
tion, and there is light at evening tide, and this light succeeding 
the darkness is called the ‘morning/ because morning means the 
coming of light. 


NEWSPAPER MAN ON MARRIAGE. 


133 


“Let us take for illustration some particular case or state 
of life, the more practical the better; and you will please excuse me 
for taking a case that I think is your own. Some eighteen months 
ago your wife died. Judging from your looks and what I have seen 
and heard of you, you have been since that time in considerable 
of an ‘evening state’ of life. There is no light in the window of 
your home. No man can have a home without a wife. A home 
is the residence of a family. Man alone is not a family,—he is 
simply alone. Tt is not good for man to be alone,’ without a home, 
without a wife! With a wife morning would come to your evening.” 

“But,” said John, “I’ve had a wife, and it seems disloyal to her 
memory to think about getting another.” 

“I admit,” replied the newspaper man, “that there are cases 
in which it would be positive adultery to marry the second time ; 
but there are circumstances under which it would be a positive virtue 
to marry again.” 

“I’ll state cases,” said the reporter, “and let you judge for your¬ 
self. First, a case where a second marriage would be adultery. 
Now, if you and ‘Em,’ as you affectionately call your first wife, had 
been in all things agreed, such as religiously, politically, personally, 
mentally, socially, and in every other way in perfect harmony of 
mind and heart, then it is most probable that you and she were 
‘joined together of God’ and ordained of God to live together as 
husband and wife forever, both in this and in the life to come,— 
for what God has joined together not even death separates,—and 
failure on your part to love her,—not love her memory—but to love 
her with all your mind, heart, soul, and strength, would be disloyal 
to her; arid any love of another woman would be actual adultery. 

“Now, there is a thing like a white stone with a name written 
in it that none can know except he that hath it. You know whether 
or not you and Em were ‘one,’—were in a state of at-one-ment or 
perfect unity with each other. If so, you would better not marry 
again. Yea, if so, you will never marry again, for you are married 
as the angels, and will be husband and wife forever. You will not 
only never marry another, but will not even think of such a thing any 
more than you thought of marrying some one else when Em was 
on earth. But there are exceedingly few of such marriages,—not 
one, perhaps, in ten thousand. Most marriages of this day are of 
the marrying-and-given-in-marriage kind,—a sort of commercialism 
so exceedingly carnal that the flesh and blood consideration does not 


134 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


undergo the resurrection into the other life. The consideration 

being of the earth, earthy, is left on the earth, and the earthly 

marriage does not inherit the heavenly marriage, as flesh and blood 
do not inherit the kingdom of heaven. 

“It would not be proper for me to ask how this is with you and 
your first wife. You may not exactly know yourself. But one 
thing is sure, if. you and she are really joined together in marriage 
such as God would have, your hearts are still up against one another 
and you will never feel that home feeling for another that you feel 

for her. If you ever should feel such a home feeling for an¬ 

other, then take it for granted that you and Em, by death, 
have ceased to be wife and husband,—and you should marry again.” 

“Do I understand you to say,” replied John, “that there are 
marriages that last forever and some that do not survive the earthly 
life?” 

“Yes,” replied the doctor. “When God joins two together, and 
‘the twain become one,’ this ‘one world of life,’ consisting of man 
and woman, one husband and one wife, becomes a little world to 
itself, of which the woman is the land and the man is the water. 
In the other life it is not good for man to be alone any more than 
in this; and the same must be said of a woman. Hence they come 
together sooner or later, as the angels—as equal parts of one whole 
human cosmos, and as ‘flesh of flesh’ and ‘bone of bone’ of each 
other, living together in unity and as ‘one,’—a unit that cannot be 
divided or separated into other units.” 

“What about the other kind of marriages, that are dissolved 
by the death of the body?” asked John. 

“All merely commercial marriages,” replied the doctor, “are 
dissolved by death, for the reason that the consideration or spirit 
of them was earthy, and as ‘dust returns to dust’ at death. For 
instance, the custom of a woman marrying her dead husband’s 
brother, even to the seventh brother, which was a law of marriage 
among the Jews, was based on the commercial condition of increas¬ 
ing citizenship. This kind of consideration fails at death, on the 
earth, for there is no increase of citizenship in heaven, except as its 
citizens come from the earth. There are no children born in heaven ; 
but the fruits of the marriage union there are such as arise from 
the association of two perfectly congenial people, such as spring 
from the union of two hearts that beat as one and of two minds 
that think as one,—of two people whose thought and love and 
whole work and aim of life are as one.” 


NEWSPAPER MAN .ON MARRIAGE. 


135 


“How about these commercial marriages ?” inquired John. 
“Are they wicked?” 

“By no means,” replied the doctor. “It is true that a merely 
commercial marriage is only allowed, as so many things are allowed 
in the Bible, on account of the hardness of people’s hearts. At one 
time even slavery and war and polygamy itself were, on this account, 
allowed. The Lord utilizes all things; for it is frequently written 
in the Book, ‘Verily, verily, they have their reward.’ By this we 
may learn that, as inferior as a marriage may be when based on an 
inferior motive, yet it has its reward. And very great sometimes is 
its reward. 

“The marriage of one man with one woman is good, even if 
such marriage exists only during the earthly life. Great good can 
come out of such a marriage. Not an invisible and intangible good 
merely, but such as you can count on your fingers. For instance, 
take your own case. If you ever spoke an unkind word to Em 
during her life, you know that after her death you would have 
given the world to have such word back; and if you ever marry 
again, you will at least not speak quite so many unkind words to 
your wife. 

“Since your wife’s death you call to mind many little omissions 
of kind words and kind acts which hurt her feelings. Now you 
feel that if she were at your side again you would say so many 
little words and do so many little kind acts that the world would 
not hold them! And you know how Em’s heart would have 
leaped for joy and her eyes laughed with happiness at the 
little words of affection and little deeds of kindness. It does 
you good to confess your sins; and, moreover, if you ever get 
another wife, I expect you will fill her home with a good many 
more kindly words and deeds of affection than you did that of 
your first wife. In the mean time the angels who have taken 
charge of Em will make up in kind attention what she missed 
from you on earth. And it will be the sweeter for her because 
the realization of a soul hunger, or any kind of a hunger, is more 
blessed than if there had never been any hunger. In fact,” con¬ 
tinued the doctor, “it is thought that third, marriages are even 
happier than second ones, and second ones happier than first ones.’ 
But this all depends on whether the man or woman has met the 
one who will altogether fill up his or her life to the exclusion of 
all others. If such has been the case in the first marriage, happy 


136 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


and blest forever is this first marriage! Such partakes of the 
'marriage of the Lamb’ itself, and should be sought after by all. 
But, like the strait way and exceedingly narrow gate, few find it 
on earth. However, under the ministration of angels in the life 
to come, all will eventually find this—the greatest of the Father’s 
gifts to his sons and daughters on earth— the final, supreme, and 
perfect love of one man for one woman, and of one woman for one 
man! This, and this alone, will make a perfect home! Everything 
contrary to this one final supreme love will be consumed in this 
conjugal love even as hay, dross,* and stubble are consumed in a 
great fire. 

“My advice to you, John, is to go into society,” continued the 
doctor, as he meditatively smoked his cigar with an expression just 
the opposite of John’s melancholy. 

“Don’t go into society with any definite view of marrying at 
all. Above all, don’t go in as a King of Maverickdom would go into 
a cattle range with a lariat to rope in the first heifer he met and 
brand her in his own name for her worth as beef or as a mother 
stock. Don’t marry anybody simply to get a cook, or a housekeeper, 
or merely as the mother of your children. In fact, don’t think of 
marriage as an object at all! Let it come, if it comes, as the effect 
of certain causes, as light and heat come as the effects of the coming 
of the sun in the morning. For instance, you find a pure-hearted 
girl, not looking for a husband, but yearning for congenial com¬ 
panionship, as all healthy-minded and right-hearted people do, and 
in this girl you find one who is mentally and socially and religiously 
and politically and generally in sympathy with yourself; so you 
begin, like one born of the spirit, you hardly know how, to feel at 
home with her and a good deal of un-at-home-ness without her. 
Such a girl you would better marry rather than spend your life in 
unavailing moans about things that you cannot help.” 

Now, the truth of history is this, that upon the death of Em 
John had become aespondent. He quit society. He shut himself 
up and away from the gardens, from the banqueting halls, from all 
the zest of life. The spirit of monasticism, of the recluse, of the 
evening, of night itself, was as darkness upon the fa'ce of all things 
of his world. He even went so far as to imagine that these things 
of evening were a glory. These the newspaper man knew were 
the habits and states of John’s life, and knowing such to be the case, 
he did not hesitate to say: 


NEWSPAPER MAN ON MARRIAGE. 


137 


“John, there is such a thing as believing a lie and being damned, 
or much damaged!” 

At the conclusion of these words, there came into the office a 
bevy of pretty girls who wanted John to show them the Capitol 
building, as the keys were in the custody of the secretary of state. 

The sage of newspaperdom retired, and John found himself 
actually taken charge of by this company of pretty, warm-hearted, 
laughing girls of whom the daughter of the State treasurer was the 
chaperon—as these were some of her visitors from other parts of 
the State. 

As members of families of the same State government, John had 
frequently met Clara Bingham much as if they were members of 
the same family. Clara was a model in the simplicity of her in¬ 
nocence, and was the exact fulfillment of the girl who goes into 
society without the least thought of courting or being courted, or any 
thought of marriage whatever. But she just let her face shine like 
the sun in the heavens, because she could not help^ it. 

With an ease that always made one feel at home, Clara said 
to John: 

“Now, John, the secretary said that you had the keys of the 
senate chamber and house of representatives and the dome of the 
Capitol, and that he did not expect that you would greatly object 
to help me chaperon these girls and show them the Capitol.” 

John, for the first -time perhaps since the death of his wife, 
indulged in a humorous sally: 

“Why, my mother on her death-bed spoke of the angels taking 
charge of me, and here they are, I reckon, come for that purpose.” 

All of the girls took this in better part, seemingly, than did 
the one who really was to be even more than a guardian over John 
for thirty-eight years. She was so sincere that anything like mere 
flattery somewhat abashed her. So, with a somewhat shy look, like 
that of a child, she introduced John to her visitors by saying: 

“This is Miss Mary Phelps; you have met Miss Ida Manson, 
and you know Ollie Oliver and Alice Mosely.” 

The “Miss Mary” was the daughter of the old “ten-termed 
Congressman” from southwest Missouri, who was afterward gover¬ 
nor of the State. She had large lustrous eyes and a complexion 
that had in it all the fresh elements of health itself. She was just 
out of the “Convent of the Sacred Heart” at St. Louis, and, as usual 
in such cases, the long repressed spirit of companionship with those 


138 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


of the opposite sex was ready to burst out in full leafage and flower 
when thrown together with the youth of the outside world, even 
as the bosom of earth, coming out of winter into the presence of 
spring, pulsates with a new life. She was an accomplished musician, 
and had the rare good sense to accommodate her music to her 
audience. She played and sang the golden old-time melodies to 
those who enjoyed them. To those who appreciated operatic airs she 
would play and sing to perfection, without making light of the 
taste of the nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand 
who preferred the old and simple melodies. It is a rule, with scarcely 
an exception, that those who indulge exclusively in high-strained 
music, in the jangling jargon of which a wayfarer hears no melody, 
are always in love with themselves, but no one else ever loves them. 
Happy are they who have the talent coupled with the wisdom of 
reaching people on all planes of life. 

“Miss Ida” was one of the belles up in John’s old haunts of 
Border Ruffiandom; and as she is still living, we will not give other 
description than to say that she had every element that promised 
to make of her “the happy wife of a happy husband,” which turned 
out to be the case, and as such she fulfilled all the law and gospel of 
the heaven of home. 

“Miss Ollie” was the daughter of the secretary of State, and 
was the type and personification of womanly grace and statuesque 
beauty that would have delighted a Grecian sculptor or painter. 
She afterward married Governor Hall. 

The “Miss Alice” was the daughter of one of the State officers, 
Colonel Wm. L. Mosely, whose daughter equaled her father'in all 
of those tender and delicate traits of character that make the perfect 
gentleman and lady. Miss Alice afterward married the son of 
Judge .Wells, who when a young man would not study geography, 
because, he said, “he never expected to travel over the world.” 
Yet, strange to say, he did travel over the entire globe. 

Now as to Clara Bingham, with whom John was to do the 
joint chaperoning. Out of her large, dusky brown eyes a something 
indescribable pleasantly peered forth, which, if not a real angel, was 
at least a daughter of music looking out into the streets of life. 
Modest to the border of the very blush-hood of a child, she had that 
graceful air that impressed every one that met her gaze as belonging 
to a girl who would make a womanly woman, a wifely wife, and 
a motherlv mother. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE JOINT CHAPERONSHJP OF JOHN AND CLARA. THE VISION. 


Paintings Hanging in the Capitol—A Painted Canvas or the Cheek 
of a Living Child, Which?—“A Vision of the Night”—The Doctrine of 
Visions in General. 


Our last chapter left John “in charge of the angels.” We shall 
now discover what disposition they made of him. It will readily 
be seen that the circumstance of being taken charge of by a bevy 
of pretty girls, taken in connection with the sermon on marriage 
preached by his old newspaper friend, would make some impression 
on John’s life. It really turned out to be the passing of “the even¬ 
ing” which precedes the “coming of the morning.” Light began 
to shine on his path. How this was will be seen as we follow John’s 
joint chaperoning with Clara. In the course of their visit about 
the Capitol building the bevy entered the senate chamber. In this 
hung a good many great paintings by Clara’s father, for some of 
which he had been paid by the State as much as five thousand dol¬ 
lars. In the presence of these Clara seemed to be dumb and lost in 
reverie. As she afterward told John, her mind wandered back to 
scenes on the Rhine, where as a child she often sat in her father’s 
studio and lovingly looked into his face as he was breathing the 
breath of his genius into the canvas that displayed it in the portrayal 
of the living features of real people; and the great-hearted girl 
cried like a child while looking at her father’s paintings. 

Along side of her father’s paintings was a modest picture of 
George Washington. On first view it looked like a painting, but 
on close inspection it was found to be wrought in needlework. This 
was the handiwork of Clara’s artistic fingers before she was yet 
fourteen years of age, and while she was still on the Rhine. At 
odd times, while she was in Europe with her father, she had wrought 
this. Jointly with her father she had presented it to the State. The 
State Legislature voted her a five-hundred-dollar medal in recogni¬ 
tion of her genius. 

(139) 





140 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Here, side by side with John, one Saturday evening in September, 
1863, now in her nineteenth year, was the girl who on the Rhine 
years before had wrought a work that indicated that she might have 
been a genius of renown. But her old Virginia father, with 
all the instincts of the old-time Southern gentleman for keeping the 
women folk from the blare and glare of publicity, had discouraged 
his daughter from the life of an artist—a life that might bring her 
into fields of labor and of fame that would interfere with the home 
life of the woman, the wife, and the mother. And with such a 
womanly-hearted girl as Clara it was neither difficult nor in any 
wise saddening to her to give up prospects of fields of fame for a 
quiet home life, because her heart was such that paintings on canvas 
hung in ten thousand public buildings and gazed on by myriads of 
applauders would not elate her spirits so much as would the dimpled 
cheeks of one living babe pressed against her bosom! 

O woman! O motherhood! Thou deservest to be crowned 
as chief in the Pantheon of the Immortals,—as the greatest in the 
temples of Greathood,—yea, as the one “altogether lovely" among 
saints! 

This feeling seemed to take possession involuntarily of the 
girls when they stood in the presence of this picture and of its modest 
author and finisher, and they then and there proposed to crown the 
blushing girl as a queen with what flowers they had. 

Up to this incident John had never entertained the least thought 
of making an effort to crown this singularly' graced girl as his 
queen. There seemed to be a veil over his heart. 

From the halls the party proceeded to the dome of the Capitol. 
From thence could be seen some twenty-five miles’ stretch of the 
Missouri River, with a steamboat here and there on its sullen-looking 
bosom. Over the other side of this river was the “Kingdom of 
Callaway" where the guerrilla held sway. Over to the southwest 
lay a stretch of rugged hill country, along which, a year from that 
time General Sterling Price was to march his scarred and veteran 
legions on his great “raid" that proved disastrous, and was the 
last of his heroic efforts to gain a foothold in the State over which 
he had once presided as governor. Among, these rugged hills fell 
a captain boy from Texas, who will hereafter be noted as figuring 
in the life of Captain Celsus Price. 

The sun was sinking in a bank of Indian Summer haze when 
the party had finished their view from the capitolian dome. Just 
at this time, one of the girls, the daughter of the secretary, said: 


THE JOINT CHAPERONSIIIP OF JOHN AND CLARA. 


141 


‘‘I am going to have a little reception at my house Tuesday 
evening in honor of our visitors, Mary Phelps and Ida Manson. You 
must all come; and John, you tell General Hackney and Mr. Janis 
and Charley Sloan and Tom Smallwood to be sure to be there.” 

This was the old-fashioned way in those days of getting up and 
extending invitations to “parties.” It seemed that things and things 
had taken charge of John, and he was expected to do things as a 
matter of course; and in this easy and natural way he was led out of 
the dusk of the evening of one state into the light of the morning 
of another. In looking back over life, he sees how it is that the 
Divine Providence leads people forward by ways of which they had 
nothing to do in devising. 

John, with his mother’s old-time instinct, walked with the com¬ 
pany of “angels” that had been in charge of him, instead of them be¬ 
ing in his charge, down to the great stone steps leading out of the 
capitolian campus, and bade them good-bye with a general feeling 
of lonesomeness that made him begin to think of what his newspaper 
friend had said upon this subject. Going into his private room ad¬ 
joining the office of the secretary of state, he looked up at the picture 
of Em, and stretching forth his hands, exclaimed: 

“O Em! Em ! My darling! Am I becoming disloyal to your 
memory ?” 

At that time John’s idea was about being loyal or disloyal to 
a mere something called “memory,” instead, as in later years, of be¬ 
ing loyal or disloyal to the person and character, instead of the recol¬ 
lection of the departed one. In a perplexed state of mind, he took 
up his Bible, as he was accustomed to doing on such occasions, and 
read the words on the right side of the page which he happened to 
open. On this occasion the words he read were as follows: “And 
God spake unto Israel in visions of the night.” 

It was not quite dusk. John lay down on a lounge and fell 
into a slumber, and finally into a deep sleep. This sleep lasted far 
into the night—so far that John failed to go to his supper. During 
this sleep he was somewhat like Paul when he didn’t know whether 
he was in the body or out of it,—in this world or the other. But 
everything was as vivid and real as though it took place on earth. 
The scene was a beautiful country-looking place. The whole view 
vividly called to mind that exquisite gem of rural life to be found in 
“Locksley Hall 

Many a night I saw the Pleiades, 

Rising through the mellow shade, 

Glitter like a swarm of fireflies 
Tangled in a silver braid! 


142 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


A small vine-clad cottage, with porches all around it, nestled 
like a dove amid the shade trees on an inclined plateau which ran 
back from the east side of a silvery river which flow r ed at the foot of 
the garden encompassing the cottage. The cottage and its sur¬ 
roundings were exactly such as John and Em had pictured as the 
kind they would like to live in when they got married. People in 
the other life have what they hunger and thirst for on earth, and 
their surroundings, together with their dress, answer to their 
thoughts and affections. 

On each side of the river, seemingly, was an intermingling of 
vines and fruit trees, which called to mind the trees of twelve manner 
of fruit seen by the evangelist in his apocalyptic vision. John found 
himself at the gate of the beautiful garden that surrounded the vine- 
clad cottage. Out of the cottage two persons came toward the gate. 
At first the forms of the approaching persons were Very indistinct, 
but they gradually assumed distinct form. John saw that one of 
them was Em looking exactly as she did in her days of best health 
and spirits while on earth—only more “all alive.'’' 

Somehow there had been a feeling of composure superinduced 
on John’s mind, so that everything appeared as natural as though on 
earth, though he recognized that, somehow or other, he had been 
“raised up” or “caught up” into a place or state of mind above the 
earth. He himself seemed to be unable to talk, which made him 
call to mind Paul’s experience of not having speakable words to tell 
what he saw. 

But Em not only looked the same as when on earth, but talked 
in the same way, only her voice was softer and she seemed to talk 
with greater ease. Her dress was a dazzlingly beautiful robe that 
looked like the sunshine as it mingles itself with the hues of some 
variegated rose. She said that this mingling of colors in her dress 
indicated that she was yet in mixed states of life, in which all 
are previous to their being translated from the place of judgment in 
the world of spirits to their homes as angels in their Father’s House; 
because, without “holiness” or oneness of heart and mind as well 
as of wedding garment, no one is admitted into the presence of God. 
Em’s dress was held to her person at the waist by a belt that had all 
manner of rubies, sapphires, and other precious jewels in it. Her 
mentor’s dress was all of one color, white. She was an angel. 

As familiarly as she ever came into the parlor of the parsonage 
in the Border Ruffian region of Missouri when John called to see 


THE JOINT CHAPERONSHIP OF JOHN AND CLARA. 


143 


her, she came up to the gate where he stood and shook hands as 
naturally as she had ever done on earth, and invited him to “come 
in.” He did so, and the two sat down side by side, on a seat in the 
rose-bowered boudoir. 

“Oh, John, I am so glad to see you! Such seeing of each other 
as this, I have learned since being here, is not often granted, and is 
only permitted on most extraordinary occasions, for some special 
purpose which cannot be accomplished in any other way. If 
you will examine your Bible you will see some hundreds of 
instances where the Heavenly Father has permitted spirits or 
angels to see. and talk to people on earth. My mentor here (look¬ 
ing at the beautiful and motherly-looking woman at her side) is 
one of the “angels that have charge over me.” She is separating 
the tares from the wheat in my heart. She is doing all of those 
things for me that the Bible says will be done by angels for those 
who are to be “the heirs of salvation.” She has undergone the resur¬ 
rection into this the world of spirits. She has passed through the 
judgment which takes place in this world, and in the judgment has 
had all of the dross and all of the tares, everything impure, separated 
from and cast out of her life. Then she was translated from this 
world of spirits—this Paradise, or intermediate place, where the 
Christ came to preach to spirits—and underwent the second resur¬ 
rection by being raised up as an angel into heaven. She is one of 
the angels sent forth out of the heavens to minister to me who as 
yet am only a spirit; but my dear elder sister here, who is my guard¬ 
ian angel as well as my mentor, says that she thinks I also will soon 
be permitted to become an angel, which none can become until he 
gets to be holy, or rid of all the errors of mind and evil affections of 
heart which he had when he left the earth life. So far I have been 
almost altogether engaged in unlearning the errors that I had 
learned on earth. It took my dear mentor nearly a year to make 
me quit looking backward to the earth and thinking of getting into 
my earthly body. Why, you see I have a body which the wise 
Apostle Paul said we all should have when we leave off the earthly 
body, a body which now is and always was a spiritual body. The 
sorest trial I had was to learn the truth of the first commandment 
about there being but ‘One God.' Our preachers on earth had led 
me to believe that there were at least three Gods—God the Father, 
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But my mentor here knows 
more than our poor earthly preachers did, and has shown me the 
truth of all those scriptures that you once showed to me as being 


144 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


handed to you by some one while you were a student at the State 
University about the Lord Jesus Christ being the ‘Only God.’ I 
have learned this, and how easily everything else is learned after 
knowing who the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, and the 
Everlasting Father is,—that the Lord Jesus Christ is this Wonder¬ 
ful Counselor, this Almighty God, this everlasting Father, this 
Prince of Peace. 

“My dear father is yet here in this world undergoing his judg¬ 
ment in having the tares or errors of doctrine separated from the 
truth in his mind. I am permitted in the presence of my mentor 
to see him whenever he and I at the same time desire to see each 
other. He is in a country much lower than this in which I am, about 
as much lower as the swamps in southeast Missouri as indicated on 
your earth map are lower than where we lived in the upper Mis¬ 
souri region. But the angels have charge of him, and are fast get- „ 
ting him winnowed of his two main false principles, that of having 
the idea in his mind of three Gods, and that of adulterating the wor¬ 
ship of the Prince of Peace with the unholy sacrifice to the pagan 
gods of war. 

“My mentor tells me that your mother was one of the ‘few’ 
spoken of by the Lord when He said, ‘The gate is strait and the way 
is narrow, and few there be that find it.’ Your mother went straight 
from earth, through this world where we are, into heaven! But 
poor father is in that class in which Peter, in the Acts of the 
Apostles, said David (a man of war) was,—David is not ascended 
into the heavens. If David remained in this intermediate world 
from the day he died until Peter’s day, it will be hard to say how 
long poor father will take to get through his judgment here. 

“But my mentor tells me that I am digressing from the special 
object of this interview with you. She says that you yourself are 
learning on earth from earthly sources all about who the Father is, 
and who God is, and what the Holy Spirit is,—that all these are em* 
bodied in the Lord Jesus Christ and in Him dwells bodily ‘all the 
fullness of the Godhead,’—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,—and she 
tells me to attend’to the special object of this meeting, which is to im¬ 
part a truth which apparently cannot be learned by you from earthly 
teachers. It is something that relates to both you and myself. Now 
and then, ever since I have been in this world, I have felt at times 
as if I were going backward instead of forward. My mentor ex¬ 
plained to me the bad consequences of ‘looking backward’ as illus¬ 
trated in the case of Lot’s wife. At first she spoke only in general 


THE JOINT CHAPERON SHIP OF JOHN AND CLARA. 145 

terms. She said that it was such a delicate matter and one which so 
nearly and so tenderly affected, not only me, but another on earth, 
that it was better that I enter the particulars of it by gradual de¬ 
grees. And it was found impossible for me to learn fully and satis¬ 
factorily of it without seeing and talking to you. Not that such is 
the case with all, but has been found to be the case with you and 
myself. It is this: You and I loved each other so sincerely that, 
seemingly, our love was well-nigh perfect. Now, there are all kinds 
of love, each good and approved of the Father in its place. There 
is the love existing between sincere friends. There is the love ex¬ 
isting between children. There is the love existing between parents 
and children. There is the love existing between brother and sister; 
—and a hundred other loves that my mentor has taught me about. 
The greatest of all these loves is that existing between husband 
and wife,—a love which the Master taught as being so much greater 
than the others that, on its account and by its power, it would lead 
to the overcoming and forsaking of the loves for father and mother 
and brothers and sisters, so that the husband would cleave unto his 
wife and the wife would cleave to the husband, forsaking all others. 

“My mentor tells me that but few in this age have this love on 
earth,—that nearly nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thou¬ 
sand marriages that take place on earth are based on other loves 
than true marriage love such as exists among the angels. You 
know that it pained both you and me on the earth to feel that, not¬ 
withstanding we were such good friends, such pleasant comrades, 
such brother and sister to each other, such so many hundred pleasant 
things to each, yet somehow our love was not so perfect, so over¬ 
whelming as to baptize our minds with a unity of spirit so that we 
could think alike on all subjects,—for instance, on politics. You 
know that it was a subject we had to avoid. Even in some religious 
matters we did not see alike ; and from the bent or trend of mind 
acquired by each of us on earth, we may always differ in many par¬ 
ticulars. As long as this is the case, while a couple may be pleas¬ 
antly and profitably joined to each other in marriage while on earth, 
which was the case with you and me, yet it cannot be the case in 
marriages among the angels. Such marriages must be like every¬ 
thing else in heaven, perfect in every particular, so that the angel 
husband will think in approval of what the angel wife loves, and 
the angel wife will love with approval every thought of the husband. 
Otherwise, they not only cannot live in the same home as husband 
and wife do, but will not even live in the same locality in heaven. 


6 


146 JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 

Differences of thought, much more differences of affection or taste,, 
separate them, just as the nationalities of earth divide into separate 
countries. The German cast of mind or thought causes Germans to 
live in Germany. The French thought and heart life causes the 
French ‘to be gathered together' in France. So of the Indian; so 
of the negro. Men flock to their kind. You know we southern 
people had a good deal of trouble on this point, that while we could 
not live on terms of social equality with the negro on earth, we 
thought that, somehow or other, we would be brought to do so in 
heaven; but we could not see how. It will never be seen, for it 
never will be the case; because there is a law which provides that 
‘like shall be gathered with like’ in this world, and that unlike per¬ 
sons and things shall be separated. The negro and white races are 
more distinctly apart and separate in this world than on the earth. 
There unlike things, may grow together until the harvest, or end of 
the life, when -the angels separate them. Here the Indians, the 
Germans, the English, and each and every nationality have their 
separate house or country,—their own vine and fig tree,—more dis¬ 
tinctly than they do on earth. Each ‘goes to his own.’ Each lives 
with his own. But all are friendly, even as all nations on earth 
should be friendly and helpful to each other. 

“So of people of the same nation. Some live in hill countries, 
indicating high states of spiritual regeneration; and others in val¬ 
leys, indicating lower states of life. Even such do not all live in 
the same ‘mansion,’ but are all measurably in the same ‘house,’ 
for in every house there are ‘many mansions.’ So, dear John, you 
and I will live in this world, when you come, not as husband and 
wife, but as brother and sister, or as friend and friend, as children 
of a common Father who have much in common. The learning of 
this great truth relieved me of that ‘drawing down’ feeling which 
1 had up to a few days ago, when I was wont to dream about how 
you and I would live together when you came up here. We shall live 
together in the sincerest affection that one friend can have for 
another. There is a peculiar law in this world by which one’s 
memory can be made perfectly oblivious to things that are of no use 
here , and which it would be unpleasant to remember. Such the 
Master said in His Book, ‘shall be covered up and never mentioned,’ 
or never brought to memory. So you see that all things of the 
earthly life, including things of our married life, that are not useful 
and pleasant, will be ‘blotted out,’ ‘covered up’ and ‘removed from 
us as far as the east is from the west,’ while all agreeable and use- 


THE JOINT CHAPERONSHIP OF JOHN AND CLARA. 


147 


ful things will be preserved, just as Moses exhorted the women of 
Israel to borrow ‘jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment’ 
of the Egyptians and take them with them into the representative 
land of Canaan. All things of earth that may be reckoned jewels 
are brought up here, but nothing else. 

“My mentor tells me that you have been burdened on the 
point of which I speak. Do not be so any longer. From this time 
on you and I will love each other as friends, as companionable asso¬ 
ciates. This really is what we were on earth, and will be so forever.” 

Here Em kissed John as a sister would kiss a brother, and re¬ 
sumed : 

“My mentor says for me to ask of you that you neither desire 
nor expect, let alone seek, any more than this interview with me. 
It is better for both that such be the case. 

“There are so many wonderful and useful things in this world 
of spirits that it would take a thousand years to tell the half. For 
instance, all along the borderland between this world and the earth 
there are innumerable cordons of beautiful cottages like the one you 
see here. These cottages are the residences of the ministering angels 
who take charge of all who come from the earth, and keep these 
newly arrived spirits until they can be prepared for heaven. No 
one, however wicked, is ever driven away from these homes of 
instruction and preparation by these good angels! An angel would 
no more think of driving any one from his home than a mother on 
earth would think of driving a sick child from her home! The 
angels keep all, good and bad, just as long as they choose to stay 
with them! 

“The only way the wicked ever get away from these angel 
homes, is as the prodigal got away from his Father’s place,—of 
their own choice! Here, as on earth, the law is, ‘whoever will/ 
‘choose ye!’ It is said that those who do leave of their own accord 
meet with a sorrowful fate in what is called the hells; but that the 
angels are always ready to receive them back if, like the prodigal, 
they choose to return. 

“The reason why things in this world are so much like those 
on earth is that not only is God unchangeable, being the same yes¬ 
terday, to-day, and forever, but His laws of action or of life are the 
same in all worlds. His will is done in heaven as He would like it 
to be done on earth. Hence the prayer taught by Him to His people 
on earth, ‘Thy will be done in earth as it is done in heaven.’ That 
God’s laws are the same in this life as on earth is declared in the 


148 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


one hundred and nineteenth Psalm, where it is written, ‘.Forever, O 
Lord, thy word is established in heaven.’ This Psalm in each of its 
many verses—the longest in the Bible—treats of God’s laws. 

“My mentor says that all the things that I have spoken of are 
clearly taught in the Bible, and that you are getting in such freedom 
of mind as to study the Word without being blinded by what the 
poor preachers and church creeds say about spiritual things, and 
that you will soon see everything as I have told you. Study the 
spiritual meaning of the Scriptures. Good-bye until you come up 
here and we become as brother and sister of the same Heavenly 
Father.” 

She shook hands with John as she would have done on earth, 
and slowly walked toward her beautiful cottage home, where she 
disappeared. And John awoke. 

From this time John felt that he and Em were altogether as 
mere brother and sister to each other. Any thought of their mar¬ 
ried life was merely as the thought of young people who had been 
simply “engaged to each other,” but with whom for good reasons, 
mutually satisfactory, the engagement had been dissolved. John 
awoke from this sleep with a burden removed,—a burden that had 
been on his mind ever since the death of Em. Now, he was not 
superstitious. In fact, he was extremely far removed from that 
mental temperament; but he was an unqualified believer in the 
Bible. He used to say, “I believe everything in it, from kiv-er to 
kiv-er.” Had he been superstitious or overcredulous, this vision 
wpuld have been hurtful to him, and hence not allowed. Any self- 
sought seership or communication with the other life is hurtful. 
Hence “spiritualism” is disorderly and harmful. But unsought vision 
is often God’s way of teaching things that cannot be learned other¬ 
wise. The Bible is full of such. All through church history there 
have been thousands of such cases. If John had been “credulous” 
he never would have doubted even the traditions of the elders, which 
he had rejected. 

To find out the truth on this subject, he got up and lit his 
lamp and “searched the Scriptures” more thoroughly on the sub¬ 
ject of visions. In fact, the matter was so critical and of such vital 
consequence that he searched the Scriptures until daybreak and far 
into the Sabbath, even doing without breakfast. And among other 
pertinent matter he found the following: “When thou speakest in 
vision to thy Holy One” (Psalm lxxxix. 19). “Where there is no 
vision the people perish” (Prov. xxix. 18). In Isaiah, twenty-ninth 


THE JOINT CHAPERONSHIP OF JOHN AND CLARA. 


149 


chapter, the Lord, speaking of the wicked, shows that one of their 
curses is to have “their vision become as a closed book,” and “their 
see-ers hath he*covered.” In Lamentations (ii.9) the fate of wicked 
prophets is given, “her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.” 
In Acts xvi.9, and xviii.9, visions appeared to Paul. In Acts xxvi. 
19, the apostle says that “he was not disobedient to vision.” In 
Job (iv.12, 13) it is written : “Now a thing was secretly brought to 
me and mine ear received a little thereof: in thoughts from the vis¬ 
ions of the night when deep sleep is fallen on men.” In Joel ii.28 
and Acts ii.17, it is written: “Thy young men shall see visions.” 
In Second Corinthians (v. 12) Paul places visions on an equality 
with revelations themselves. When introducing an account of his 
being caught up into the third heaven, he says, “I will come to 
visions and revelations of the Lord.” In Job (xxxiii. 15, 16) it is 
written: “In a dream, in a vision of the night when deep sleep 
falleth on man in slumbering on the bed, then he openeth the ears of 
men and sealeth their instruction.” 

These and a hundred other passages of Scripture which John 
read and pondered all went to show that the Divine Providence “in 
visions of the night when deep sleep falleth on men” instructs them. 
He also called to mind the multitude of well authenticated instances 
where men and women, in all ages, even in the present age, have been 
warned or instructed in dreams and visions. There is scarcely a 
living person who has not had these “visions” himself, or knows 
some friend who has had them. We could fill a volume of thou¬ 
sands of pages with apparently well established cases of visions in 
dreams that were as true as the actual every-day experiences of our 
common earthly life. 

John also called to mind the preaching of his friend, the re¬ 
porter. He remembered the fact that a tree is known by its fruit, 
and he knew that his mind had been unburdened of a grievous load 
by his dream, just as though he had seen Em and talked to her face 
to face. Besides, John had begun to recognize that people were 
living “souls” and not mere things. Under the reading of some 
books that his friend, the newspaper man, had lent him, such as 
“Man a Spiritual Being and Not a Mere Animal,” John had thrown 
the flesh and blood nightmare of materialism from off his bosom 
and was enabled to breathe the air of that which is spiritual. In 
carefully reading the Bible he discovered that as much, if not more, 
was said about the “ministration of angels” as co-workers with and 
ministers of God in the serving of men, as is said about the ministra- 


150 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


tions of earthly priests or ministers. From reason he could see how 
much greater influence an angel, acting interiorly, could exert on 
a person than could be exerted by another person atting exteriorly. 
And, in reading early church history, when the whole church thought 
and life were right up against its first teachings, he saw that that 
history was replete with the relation of men on earth to the angels 
in heaven, and much was said about “angelic ministration.” But 
during the Dark Ages men became so material that they lost sight 
entirely of angels and their part in the ministration of God’s life to 
men; so that the church itself denied and denounced the truth that 
angels had anything to do with men on earth, or that they had any¬ 
thing to do in the world of spirits, or the place of judgment, in 
separating the good from the evil in each man, notwithstanding the 
Master himself said that “the angels shall come forth and sever the 
wicked from among the just,” and taught in the parable of the 
tares the same doctrine of the angels separating the tares from the 
wheat, which is a process of judgment by which the hay, dross, and 
stubble, the tare, the goat, the evil, which each man has in his life, is 
got out of his life through the ministration of angels by the use 
of means the same as mothers use to get such things out o'f their 
children, and by which ministers weed such things out of the lives 
of the members of their flock. Only the angels are greater adepts 
at such things than earthly mothers and ministers can be, and make 
no mistakes. 

He found that the church had “fallen” away from the idea of 
“use,” and had substituted “faith alone” for doing the will of God 
in heaven, vainly imagining heaven to be a kind of circus place 
where the people that went there saw sights and sung • songs and 
looked about without anything to do, which is but a species of vaga¬ 
bondism. He began to see that the angels had a great deal to do in 
straightening out Em and Brother McNal, and he knew they would 
have a great deal to do to straighten him out, if he should go where 
Em was. 

All that Sabbath day he read the Bible and pondered on such 
things, and became thoroughly convinced that his vision was based 
on both the Bible and on early church history, as well as on the 
very nature of man as a spiritual being, yea, as a very spirit, clothed 
temporarily with flesh,’even as the one true living God clothed Him¬ 
self with an earthlv body of flesh and manifested Himself bv living 
on earth as the “Immanuel,” or God personally and visibly present 
with men in the world. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


JOHN AND CLARA’S COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 


What Became Respectively of the Bevy of Angels That Had Chap¬ 
eroned John—John and Clara Never Had “A Courtship”—A Proviso 
About tjie Marriage Ceremony—John Had the Minister to “Spiritually 
Discern” the Word “Obey” and so Omit it Altogether—Now Light Falls 
on the Minister. 

According to the arrangement made Saturday evening, John 
betook himself to the home of the secretary of state. Between the 
Saturday evening at the Capitol and the Tuesday evening following, 
at the reception given in honor of the visiting girls, John seemed to 
himself to have passed through nearly a life time. From Saturday 
at dinner until the next Monday morning he had not tasted a morsel 
of food or drink, but had remained in the wilderness or solitude of 
his own private room at the Capitol. On Monday morning he felt 
that he had been on some Mount of Transfiguration. He knew that 
he had passed through some distinct epoch of his life,—had ex¬ 
perienced some phase of one of the six days of the creation spoken 
of in the first chapter of Genesis,—for there had been a very dim 
and dusky “evening” succeeded by a real “morning,”—and this 
“evening and morning” made a distinct state, or day, iti his life. He 
felt the same freshness and buoyancy of life that had characterized 
him before the sickness and death of Em. 

In this buoyancy of spirit he attended’ the party given by the 
daughter of tbe secretary of state. He was invited there especially 
to entertain Miss Mary P., who was described in a preceding chapter. 

Now, it might be supposed that John, while not exactly running 
between a very rocky Scylla on one side, and a flint-hard Charybdis 
on the other, nor yet finding himself between the devil and the deep 
blue sea, yet was in a very critical state in being associated with 
such girls as he had chaperoned at the Capitol on Saturday. 

So far all the courting he had had with Clara B. was in behalf 
of his friend General Hackney. He had met Miss Ida M. on a 


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152 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


steamboat, which of all places on sea or land is calculated to make 
young people fall in love with each other, and this boat had lain 
for nearly a week on the great sand-bar at Malta Bend on the Mis¬ 
souri River. From the time he went into the office of her father, 
he had seen daily the stately daughter of the secretary. With Alice 
M. he had been nearly as a brother. 

John, at various little “sociables,” and on several excursions to 
neighboring vineyards, was brought much together with the con¬ 
vent girl, who, seemingly, had every magnetic element to attract a 
young man who admired classical culture, patrician beauty of face, 
rounded symmetry of form, combined with a cheery spirit and a big 
warm heart. And this association did awake in John many thoughts 
of admiration and emotions, that pulsed with very warm blood, but 
there seemed to be wanting, perhaps on the part of both, that love 
that should exist between those who are to be “one.” Hence, in 
all the heights of admiration in which they basked, and in all the 
depths of friendly affection in which they bathed, John never felt 
that peculiar throb of the one peculiar love that could influence him 
to give this lovely girl the pleasure, or pain, as the case may have 
been, of refusing his hand and heart. And it was well,—well for 
both. Mary happily married a Pacific Coast millionaire and is the 
happy home-loving mother of some lovely children in whom she 
lives over again her own beautiful child life. The multimillionaire 
heiress is yet to be found by John. 

As to General Hackney, with all of John’s courting Clara for 
him, Clara never on her part gave the slightest response. John 
made a square failure with her on that line, and in after years he 
was led to believe that with any other “entry” than himself there 
would always have been a failure to reach the goal of the approving 
love of a girl who was a multimillionaire in the riches, of her own 
heart, which like the cruse of oil of the woman of Sarepta, in all 
kinds of dearths and famines, “never failed until it rained,” and 
multiplied itself more and more as the years came and went, in love 
of home, in love of husband, and in love of children,—a girl who 
would measure up to the standard of being great as a woman in the 
world, and yet greater as a wife in the life of her husband, and 
greatest of all in the family home as a mother. Long after that 
time, far away in Texas, after thirty-eight years of married life, 
in a Texas paper it was written of this one of the bevy of angels 
that chaperoned John that Saturday evening at the Missouri Capitol, 



john and clara’s courtship and marriage. 


153 


that “she lived and died in that spirit of charity that overcomes all 
things contrary to its own sunshine,—a charity that 'hoped all 
things, and bore all things, and never failed.’ ” 

There never was any “courtship,” in the ordinary meaning of 
that term, between John and Clara, no courtship that implied the 
using of this and that art “to gain favor.” Neither was there any 
commercial element or worldly consideration in their coming to¬ 
gether. 

It can be truthfully said, from the beginning to the end of the 
association of John with Clara, that things were so natural, that the 
sun did shine so as a matter of course, the dews did fall so silently, 
the rains came so regularly in their due season, the spring went into 
summer so gently and gradually, that their love was like the birth 
of seasons, coming when and whence and where neither of them 
scarcely ever knew. Yet it came like that most genuine and power¬ 
ful of all things—like that birth in which all old things of single 
selfishness passed away to give place to the new life of double bless¬ 
edness,—that of mutually loving and being loved, which is the primal 
and the greatest source of happiness vouchsafed by the great Father 
to His sons and daughters, either on earth or in heaven! 

And so the time came to speak to the minister who was to pro¬ 
nounce them ceremonially “one,” as they were already in heart 
“one.” 

Just at this point we will introduce a conversation which was 
almost a controversy that took place between John and the minister 
when he went to engage him to “perform the marriage ceremony.” 
The minister was an aged preacher, the father of Major-General 
Schofield. He belonged to the Baptist Church, a church that was 
never much of a favorite with John, yet out of deference to the 
family of the bride; who were Baptists, John readily acquiesced in 
this Baptist preacher performing the ceremony, provided that he, 
the minister, had passed up to that degree of the regenerate life in 
which he recognized that a woman is as good as a man, that a hus¬ 
band and a wife are in all things joint, and several partners with 
equal rights and of equal authority, and thus believing, he would 
omit from the marriage ceremony all words indicating that the wife 
was to be the subject of her husband, and to substitute such words 
in their place as would indicate that the wife and husband were 
joint and coequal partners, and hence joint and coequal sovereigns 
of the “Ferdinand and Isabella” type. 

So John, in speaking to the minister, called his attention to the 
above proviso, whereupon, the old minister said to him: 


154 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Do you not believe in the Bible, Mr. Counsellor?” 

“Most assuredly I do,” replied John; “I believe in its every 
letter, in its every word, in its every verse, in its every chapter, in 
its every law, prophecy, psalm, gospel, and apocalypse.” 

“Then,” replied the minister, “in view of the words to be found 
in the 16th verse of the third chapter of Genesis, where the Lord 
said to the woman,‘Thy desire shall be unto thy husband and he 
shall rule over thee,’ how can you get around these words; and in 
view of them how can you ask me to omit the words in the church 
ritual pledging the wife to ‘obey her husband ?’ ” 

“I do not propose to get around these words,” replied John. 
“When properly understood they do not teach the lesson that a wife 
must obey her husband any more than that the husband shall obey 
the wife. In the first place, the Bible is the Word of God, who is 
a Spirit; and God declares Himself that ‘My words are spirit’ and 
‘must be spiritually discerned.’ And what is more to the point, it is 
emphatically declared that ‘the letter kills, but the spirit maketh 
alive.’ Now, the disregard of this truth, like the disregard of all 
truth, has led to grievous results. By taking the literal wars of 
the people of Israel in destroying their enemies, men, women, chil¬ 
dren, and cattle, the most fiendish wars of history have been justified. 
Truly ‘the letter kills,’—often kills all ideas of humanity itself. But 
‘spiritually discerning’ the Scripture about these exterminating wars, 
and seeing spiritually that the ‘foes to be exterminated’ root and 
branch are those of a ‘man’s own household,’—in his own heart, 
such as envy, hate, murder, uncleanness, and all evil and error,—then 
the whole matter is made ‘alive’ with present personal interest to all 
of us, and we see the necessity of making a war of the exterminating 
kind on such enemies. The old Adam must die. The literal tolera¬ 
tion of many wives in the letter ‘kills’—kills all idea of marital de¬ 
cency, and absolutely kills that highest and holiest of all loves— 
true marriage love, that can make only one man and one woman 
‘one’—one living world of two equal moral hemispheres. 

“But when we ‘spiritually discern’ and say that by husband is 
meant God, and by wife is meant the Church, we then see that there is 
much good in God having churches to suit all kinds of people—even 
twenty odd different Methodist churches, and over a dozen Baptist 
churches, and about as many churches in all as Solomon had wives— 
and that whenever in any of these churches there is the mustard 
seed of truth, or the smoking flax of good affection, the great God, 


john and clara’s courtship and marriage. 


155 


as the bridegroom, joins himself to this truth and good, and lets 
his rain fall and his sun shine on all. Literally, a multiplicity of 
wives ‘kills.’ Spiritually, a multiplicity of churches, -allegorized as 
wives, ‘makes alive.’ So of every seemingly ‘hard saying’ in the 
Bible. The letter may ‘kill,’ but the spirit ‘makes alive.’ 

“Now, the scripture that you quote in the letter ‘kills’—kills all 
idea of the ‘oneness’ of man and wife,—kills all idea of that fitness 
that makes a loving woman a loving companion, by making her a 
slave,—kills all idea of the queenly portion of the good Isabella by 
making her the subject of a master Ferdinand, instead of his co¬ 
sovereign. But spiritually discerned, this scripture teaches an in¬ 
teresting and ‘live’ lesson, inasmuch as it applies to-day to you and 
to me, as well as to our wives. Spiritually, man is made in the 
‘image and likeness’ of God. His ‘image’ nature is known as his 
head or thoughts, his ‘likeness’ nature is known as his heart or af¬ 
fections. Now, every man as well as every woman has this ‘image’ 
and this ‘likeness’ nature in his own bosom. Further, it is known 
that the man is more of head than of heart, and that the woman is 
more of heart than of head. Hence, men represent the thought life, 
and woman the feelings or affectionate life. It is well known that 
men first fell by being led astray by their passions, their feelings, 
their affections. Hence it is written, ‘Out of the heart proceed evil 
thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, 
wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemies, pride, 
and foolishness.’ In view of this; it is also written that ‘he is a fool 
that trusteth to. his own heart.’ Hence the scripture that you quote to 
justify making a woman subject to a man, when spiritually dis¬ 
cerned,’ is simply this: A man’s feelings must be subject to his 
better thought, passion must be under the control of the judgment, 
or in other words a man’s heart must be subject to his head. Be¬ 
cause, it will be seen that, while the heart may love all the catalogue 
of sins named as proceeding from the heart, yet the mind or better 
judgment of any sane man would disapprove of them. I could 
illustrate, by ten thousand texts of Scripture in which the letter— 
the literal interpretation—kills, but the ‘spirit,’ or spiritual lesson 
taught, makes alive. I’ll never marry if I have to wrest the Scrip¬ 
tures to the destruction of the independence and joint partnership 
with myself of the woman I marry!” 

Here the aged minister said: 


156 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


“For over fifty years of married life I never thought of Mrs. 
Schofield, my wife, ‘obeying’ me. .Neither has she ever thought of 
such a thing. • We have just lived as though we were equal partners. 
Hence I see good reason for the interpretation that you place on this 
scripture; and I am more than willing to omit the words in the mar¬ 
riage ceremony that pledge the wife ‘to obey.’ Such omission, in 
fact, is approved by my experience and by my reason; and seeing 
now that the ‘Thus said the Lord’ does not in any wise require such 
a degrading and ill-fitting pledge, I shall more than cheerfully omit 
it, and only request after this that the husband and wife promise 
simultaneously that they will mutually honor, cherish, and love each 
other.” 

So all things being good, on the morning of the second day of 
June, 1864, when flowers were blooming and birds were singing, 
John and Clara changed their relation from that of man and woman 
to that of bridegroom and bride; and in the course of thirty-eight 
years of mutual love grew ever into the oneness of husband and 
wife. In all the years of their married life they never settled any 
difference by an appeal to the “authority” of the husband over the 
wife, but always by mutual and considerate consultation. If this 
failed they resorted to a little “kissing spree” here or a little “cry¬ 
ing bee” there, the sunshine and rain of which, like the sunshine and 
rain of a summer day, always brought forth proper fruit in proper 
season. 

Oh, the days, the days in Missouri and far-away Texas, of this 
married life, with its moons of honey and its suns of sweetness, with 
its stars of greater and lesser magnitudes of sparkling gladness! 

John often asked Clara whether, had she known of the sun¬ 
shine and sadness of these days, she would have married. Her 
cheerful response was always straightforward and immediate : 

“Certainly, I would have married had I known everything just 
as I know it now.” 

On a similar day to that on which she married—only it was 
evening instead of morning—thirty-eight years after her marriage 
away off in Texas, she was gathered together with her kindred, the 
Angels—died of a broken heart caused, in part, not by Counsellors, 
but by lawyers. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


COMPARISON AND PASSING OF GOVERNORS JACKSON 
AND GAMBLE. 


Lyon Pursues Jackson into Arkansas—The “Uneasy” Politician Calls 
His Legislature Together and Votes Missouri Out of the Union—This 
Vote Somewhat Like the Mohammed and the Mountain Business—Jack- 
son Dies—Governor Gamble on Deck—His Administration a Grand Suc¬ 
cess on the Line of Christian Civilized Government—Governer Gamble 
Dies—John’s Church Troubles. 


As a matter of course, this story is not concerned with the his¬ 
tory of Missouri, except as such history comes into or immediately 
affects the life of John Counsellor. Nevertheless, we will lead the 
reader back in order to note a few things. The last we had heard of 
Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson was that on a beautiful morning 
of May, 1861, John had seen him just at sunrise standing on the 
wharf at Booneville, with his left arm over the neck of a splendid 
Arabian-looking roadster. So far as poor Claib’s part of the guber¬ 
natorial department of government was concerned, it was then and 
there in all truth “in the saddle,”—a little more so perhaps than was 
General Pope’s headquarters in Virginia when Lee’s legions were 
pushing up against him and kept him in constant movement. 

In those May days of 1861 Blair, Lyon, and Sigel, with their 
“d—n Dutch,” were not only in the saddle, but in cattle cars, on 
steamboats, and flat-footed in the middle of the road. From St. 
Louis to the capital and from the capital to Booneville, from Boone¬ 
ville to Cow Skin Prairie in the far southwest, and from Cow Skin 
Prairie to the confines of Arkansas, “the Dutch,” with Lyon at their 
front, had pushed Price and Jackson. On the Arkansas border Jack- 
son, like the dove of the ark, found a place to light down and rest. 
There he called the State Legislature together. About ten per cent 
of the legislature attended the Arkansas Border Session of the Mis¬ 
souri Legislature, which proceeded to vote Missouri out of the Union 
and to declare the forces that had chased the Jackson Government to 
be “invaders.” 


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158 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Engaged in such “paper wad” political impotencies, on the 9th 
day of December, A. D. 1862, the peppery spirit of the Missouri 
Nullifier went to give its final account to its Maker, but, seemingly, 
not its moulder. From 1849, when he introduced into the Missouri 
Legislature his Nullification Resolutions, through all the fierce cru¬ 
sades against Tom Benton, “Claib Jackson,” as everybody called 
him, had been one of the chief fire-eaters that had inflamed the pro¬ 
slavery heart. 

In the canvass of i860, whether from policy or from principle 
God only knows, Jackson had sided with Douglas, the Unionist, as 
against Breckenridge, the avowed dis-Unionist. Governor Jackson 
was what Senator Benton styled “an uneasy politician.” John came 
down the river with Jackson on the same boat which brought the 
upper country delegates to the Democratic State Convention of i860 
—the convention that nominated Jackson—and received a kindness 
from the coming governor, who sat behind him at a game of cards 
and assisted in playing his hand. It was not, perhaps, for this kind¬ 
ness that John cast the vote of his county for Jackson—a perform¬ 
ance of which he never bragged much in the presence of his father. 
It was a striking exemplification of the fact that “politics makes 
strange bed-fellows;” and that one may have enough of Christianity 
to “cuss” a person for ten years, and on the first occasion that offers 
to “bless” him with a vote of confidence! 

Party. politics is a dirty combination of snare, delusion, and 
dead-fall—a kind of loving darkness and believing a lie and being 
damned business—as it was practiced before the war and after the 
war, and as has ever been and ever will be practiced as long as men 
are mere self-seeking party politicians. 

In contrast to this “uneasy” type of the mere politician, we shall 
give a few thoughts about a man who, on the 31st day of January, 
1864, had his hand released also from the helm of the Missouri State 
Government—Governor Hamilton Gamble. Gamble was an alto¬ 
gether different build of public man from Jackson. Jackson was a 
party politician pure and simple, where Gamble was simply a citizen 
patriot. Jackson, seemingly, always had a good deal of left-handed 
scheming in all his undertakings, while Gamble in a right-handed 
way went at things after serious exercise of a spirit of consultation 
and consideration for all concerned. 

John’s boarding-house was a kind of neutral territory, where he 
met “Rebs” and “Reds,” and the men of the auream mediocritatem. 
Neither the “Rebs” nor the “Reds” understood Governor Gamble. 


COMPARISON AND PASSING OF JACKSON AND GAMBLE. 


159 


We may say that they neither understood nor appreciated him. 
Hence John found it difficult to explain his merits to the satisfaction 
of either the “Rebs” or the “Reds.” We may safely say that, had 
the mothers of Missouri, and the business men of Missouri, and the 
real Christian ministers of the churches, all known and appreciated 
the spirit and the labors of the Missouri State Government under 
Gamble, the unanimous verdict would have been that it was the 
wisest, the broadest, the most non-partisan and purely patriotic 
State government that Missouri ever had, before or since the war. 
John saw all of the inside life of this civil State government from 
beginning to end, and in a public address said: “The civil govern¬ 
ment of Missouri during the civil war, as organized by the State 
Constitutional Convention in 1861, is the only purely patriotic, non¬ 
partisan government that Missouri ever had; and without which, 
the partisans, the ‘Reds’ and the ‘Rebs,’ would have sowed the State 
in brimstone and harvested it with the butcher knife and bullets.” 

As it was, this heroic State government, headed bv such men as 
Gamble, Hall, Oliver, Mosely, Bingham, and Orr/in the executive 
department, and such men as Barton Bates, J. D. S. Dryden, and W. 
V. N. Bay, in the judicial department, and such friends and counsel¬ 
ors as Rollins, King, Doniphan, Moss, Phillips, Crittenden, Switzler, 
Adams, Leonards, Phelps, and a host of such “conservators of law 
and order,” all receiving the steadfast and hearty backing on the 
part of that grand old commoner, Lincoln, this State government, so 
headed and constituted and supported, would no doubt carry off the 
prize in a contest by debate at the Missouri State University, in 
which all the State governments of the State were entered as con¬ 
testants. Or at least, during the long days in the life of the world 
to come, if for purposes of good the question should come up as to 
“which was the most civilizing and Christianizing, and hence the 
most potent for restraining evil and constraining good, of all the 
State governments of Missouri, the civil government known as 
the Gamble administration would carry off the prize.” 

John often told his wife when they were Methodists that their 
religion might be a little shaky, but that they would doubtless be 
admitted into the political heaven on account of their connection 
with this model State government, even if they should fail to get 
an entry into the ecclesiastical department of the “House of Many 
Mansions.” 

So farewell to the State government around which so many 
tender and holy memories cluster in John’s mind! At its close John 


160 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


was offered his old position at a greatly increased salary. But he 
thought the time had come for another vocation—for what he re¬ 
garded as higher work; but in which, as will be seen, he was to be 
sadly disappointed. During all these days the dying swan-like song 
of his mother, “Oh, that John may some day see his way to preach 
these beautiful truths!” kept sounding in his ears and meeting a 
response in his heart. Deep was calling unto deep! 

The church in which to preach them was his greatest trouble. 
Up to the very close of the war he had kept up his membership in 
the Southern Methodist Church. But he thought its clergy were 
so embittered, and its membership was so thoroughly devoted to 
the honest delusion that even such men as Forrest should be sainted, 
that not even a minister among them would be acceptable unless he 
could sing paeans and hosannas to their sons of Mars. In this mat¬ 
ter he consulted such genuinely good ministers of the Southern 
Church as Godbey and Vandeventer, and they concurred with him 
in his views. 

At that time John was still in the bonds of ecclesiastical bit¬ 
terness and iniquity, and thought that, as he was born a Methodist, 
he must live and die one, just as a Mohammedan believes that, hav¬ 
ing been raised to shout “Allah, Allah!” it would be treason not to 
go on forever shouting “Allah!” In this John was honest—just 
as honest as a Mohammedan is, just as honest as even a Jew that 
helped crucify the Christ could be, “not knowing,” however, “what 
he did.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE CHURCH PLANE DETERMINES ALL OTHER 
PLANES OF LIFE. 


The Character of the Outgoing State Government and that of the 
Incoming One—The Church Plane of Life Responsible for the Character 
of Political, Professional, and Business Planes of Life—Evil in Man 
Causes Curses in Even the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms of Life; 
So Also Evil in the Church Causes Curses in the State—John Enters 
the Methodist Ministry—Plis “Well, Well, Well!” and His Wife’s Idea 
About It. 


Governor Willard P. Hall succeeded Governor Gamble, and 
this succession was but that of Elisha succeeding Elijah. The State 
administration strengthened its stakes and lengthened its cords of 
law and order. Neither the “Reds” nor the “Rebs” were in it, ex¬ 
cept as recipients of protection in all their personal and civil rights, 
such as protection of property from unlawful seizure, the protection 
of life while engaged in lawful pursuits, and the protection of liberty 
of speech and the freedom of the press in the advocacy of the dis¬ 
puted theories of government. In fact, at Jefferson City, during the 
administrations of Governors Gamble and Hall, there were equal 
rights and privileges to all law-abiding citizens regardless of their 
religion, politics, or color of complexion; and one living there 
scarcely knew the war was going on except through newspaper re¬ 
port. Seeing such a government so successful in the exercise of an 
absolutely non-partisan and patriotic spirit confirmed John in the 
faith that, if this government is kept from another bloody war, it 
will be so kept by the men of the “golden mean” and not by rabid 
party politicians. 

In all the years after John’s experience with this State govern¬ 
ment, he opposed all kinds of government of party politicians by 
party politicians for party politicians; and favored all movements 
looking toward a government of the people by the people for the 
people. Thus he was evoluting out of the partisan into the patriot 
( 161 ) 



162 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


contemporaneously with his evolution out of mere ecclesiasticism 
into the spirit and life of a Christian. About this time he began to 
say in his public utterances that, in the strife between Church-ianity 
and Christianity, where Christianity overthrew Church-ianity the 
vaticans and bastiles of the party politicians would give way to the 
open forum of the people, and that the professional criminal lawyer, 
who, for hire, prostitutes justice in its own chambers, would give way 
to counselors-at-law whose only effort in the administration of jus¬ 
tice would be to see that equal and exact justice be meted out re¬ 
gardless of any one-sided clientage. But more of this in after years. 

The years of the grandest of all Missouri's State administra¬ 
tions were drawing to a close, and stormy days were awaiting the 
State. The “Rebs” had brought on war against men in arms. The 
“Reds” were soon to inaugurate war on the “views,” the “sympa¬ 
thies,” or the very rights of men either to preach, practice law, or 
hold office, whatever might be the views of the congregation which 
had the preacher, or the wishes of the client that employed the 
lawyer, or the vote of the citizens who elected the officer. 

The proscription to which we allude was established after the 
Gamble regime and after Lincoln was dead. Then the “Reds” un¬ 
der Governor Fletcher came into power and adopted under bayonet 
rule what was called the “Drake Constitution,” which had a Dracon- 
ian-Jacobinical clause that disfranchised citizens and made them in¬ 
eligible for office, or the practice of law, or even preaching, on ac¬ 
count of “their sympathies” before and during the war. Under this 
Jacobin code the Robespierres and Dantons and Marats officially be¬ 
headed the man who made the great Union speech described in chap¬ 
ter eleven, and who during every month of the years from 1861 to 
1865 was at the front as a Union soldier. He was beheaded because, 
as a judge, he decided that that clause of the Draconian code al¬ 
luded to was against the cardinal principles of liberty itself. 

John happily got out of this scramble by resigning his office and 
going into the ministerial field, where he had hopes that something 
could be done on a plane above politics and law; so that, the higher 
plane of religion being purified, the lower planes of politics and 
law would also be restored to order. But it is a little strange, after 
what he had witnessed in church circles and among the priesthood, 
that he still indulged a hope that new wine could be put into old 
bottles. His wife, who fortunately had never been wedded to anv 
ecclesiasticism like John, and was thus saved from being a convert to 
some ecclesiastical hell, always told him that she would cheerfully go 


THE CHURCH PLANE DETERMINES ALL OTHERS. 


163 


with him wherever he went, but that he would never find rest within 
the borders of either branch of Methodism, and that he would not 
obtain that peace of mind which comes only through finding the 
truth, in the borders of any so-called church that prides itself on 
being “orthodox” by preaching “mystery” instead of “revelation,” 
and in believing the medieval heresy of three Gods, which neces¬ 
sarily leads to Babel-like confusion of tongues in church doctrine 
generally. 

John’s wife was too womanly of heart to think that any church 
was a Christian Church that favored war with its violence and kill¬ 
ing of men; but she saw moral and religious things with her clear, 
single mind just as she saw material things with her natural eye, 
and never mistook a horse for a house, or a railroad for a river. She 
had sprung from a race of people that had never been proselyted to 
any ecclesiastical creed, but were simple believers in the Christ, 
while John had a taint, at least, of ecclesiastical leaven, the work¬ 
ings of which he found it difficult at times to resist. 

About this time, in April of the year 1865, one Sunday after¬ 
noon John had a personal visit from his old University friend, the 
newspaper reporter, during which Sabbath-day visit the following 
talk occurred: ^ 

“John,” said the reporter, “I hear that you are going to give up 
your office and go to preaching. How is this ?” 

“Well, yes,” replied John. “Every one must do something. So 
must I. I was educated for a lawyer, but became disgusted with 
that profession during the few years that I engaged in its practice 
before the war. I found that nine out of ten members of that profes¬ 
sion would take a fee on any side of any dispute that first offered. 
This looked to me like prostitution. The ordinary lawyer will not 
only hire out his virtue for money, but he will knowingly try to 
keep witnesses from telling the truth if the truth is unfavorable to 
the side which hires him. Not only this, but, notwithstanding it is 
a penitentiary offense to aid and abet the escape of a criminal outside 
of the court, the ordinary lawyer will not only educate himself to aid 
criminals inside of the court to escape justice, but so shameless has 
be become in thus aiding criminals to escape that he will publicly 
boast of his feats in that line. This and a thousand other things 
connected with the present-day practice of law utterly forbid that I 
should go back to that awful house of professional degradation. 

“Party politics is about as badly prostituted as law. In fact, 
the lawyers and the party politicians have caused the war that is now 


164 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


deluging our land with blood. I have not been educated for any 
huckstering line of traffic. A pastoral life, or its spiritual corre¬ 
spondent, the life of a pastor—ministerial work—is the only open 
gate I see. Through this gate I see a field for the sowing of all good 
seed, the tilling of all good soil, and the pruning and keeping of 
all good fruit trees. It appears to be a field that should be inviting 
to and worthy of the most exalted talent and in keeping with the 
most refined taste—” 

Here the practical, matter of fact newspaper man interjected : 

“You speak of a field in which Christianity is preached, and in 
your views of this you are correct. But the field in which you pro¬ 
pose to preach is not a Christian field, but an ecclesiastical one. And 
you will find this ecclesiastical field about as much diseased, dis¬ 
ordered, distempered, and prostituted as you found the profession 
of law, equally as thorny and rocky as the field of party politics.” 

“If it were not for the terrible fact stated in the Book of Revela¬ 
tion, that the ecclesiastical or church plane of life is fallen away 
from its original state and ‘is become the habitation of devils, and 
the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hate¬ 
ful bird/ then there would not be so many ‘unclean and hateful 
things’ in politics, in law,,and in all the callings of life; because all 
life is from heaven, and the church plane is next to heaven and 
transmits all life to the plane of politics and law just below it. If 
the church plane is murky everything that comes through it is 
murky, just as the pure light of the sun is red or yellow or blue 
when it passes through a red, yellow, or blue medium. Hence the 
Revelator says, in connection with the passage I have quoted de¬ 
scribing the terrible condition of the church plane, that ‘all nations 
have drunken of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the 
kings of the earth (politicians and lawyers who make or administer 
law or government) have committed fornication with her, and the 
merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of 
her delicacies.’ The church plane represented by Babylon being dis¬ 
eased and disordered, the political plane represented by kings, and 
the commercial plane represented by the merchant become also 
drunken and demoralized by drinking from the ‘cup of fornication’ 
furnished by a Babylonized church. So you see that this scripture 
asserts that, the plane of life just below another plane partakes of the 
nature of the plane above. Hence, as the logicians, arguing from 
effect to cause, determine that certain effects being established cer¬ 
tain causes may be inferred, so even if the Revelator had not ex- 


THE CHURCH PLANE DETERMINES ALL OTHERS. 


165 


pressly said that Babylon, being a hold of every foul bird and beast 
and devil, had made the kings and merchantmen of the earth drunk 
on her fornications, we could infer that if party politicians and 
lawyers are corrupt and corrupting, the church in their country is 
also spiritually corrupt and corrupting. I could give you a hundred 
other texts of Scripture asserting the same thing. The most noted 
of such Scriptures is the one in Genesis in which man, being cor¬ 
rupted and cursed, everything below man, even the earth itself, that 
brought forth spontaneously all good fruits before man fell, after his 
fall was cursed in bringing forth thorns and thistles. This curse 
was not a mere arbitrary hat, but in keeping with the great and un¬ 
changeable law of cause and effect. Fire burns, not because God 
says it shall burn, but because it is its very nature to burn. If man 
should become pure, then all unclean birds, such as owls and bats 
and buzzards, and all filthy and fierce beasts, such as pole-cats, hogs, 
wolves, and hyenas, and all vermin, such as spiders and poisonous 
bugs and snakes, and all noxious vegetation, such as weeds, thorns, 
and thistles, would cease and disappear, as all effects cease when 
causes cease. 

“God only created what is 'good.’ No evil, no unclean thing, no 
filthy beast or bird, no fierce animal, no noxious vegetation, in fact, 
not one single bad thing in all the range of ‘badness’ was created by 
God. All bad things are the creation of evil—like producing like— 
and the evil cause ceasing, the evil effect ceases. The evil in men 
being cast out, all the bad effects of that evil cease, just as a stream 
ceases when the fountain is dried up. Spiritually all errors comes 
from the fornication of truth—” 

“Hold,” said John, who was greatly pained at such plain speech 
about the horrible condition of the church. He was as badly 
shocked as the Jews were at the plain words of Jesus at His first 
coming in denouncing the children of the sainted Abraham as “a 
generation of vipers” and children of their father the devil, who was 
a liar from the beginning, and affirming that they, the church people, 
would be cast out of the kingdom and harlots and publicans be pre¬ 
ferred before them. “Do you claim,” said he, “that the horrible de¬ 
scription given of Babylon in the scripture that you have quoted is 
a revelation of the true*character of the church?” 

“Why, certainly I do,” replied the newspaper reporter. “What 
commentator does not claim that Babylon represents a fallen church ? 
It is true that commentators differ as to what church it is. The 
Catholics contending that it is the Protestant Church, and the Protes- 


166 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


tants that it is the Catholic Church. But all disinterested histo¬ 
rians, as well as all commentators who are seeking to hew to the 
line of truth regardless of where the chips may fall, say that the 
descriptions given by the Revelator are descriptions of the earthly 
church. The seven epistles to the seven churches are also a descrip¬ 
tion of the church universal on the earth.” 

“Well,” replied John, “as awful as it is, I see that it is no worse 
than was the condition of the church at the first coming of Christ. 
At what particular time is the church in the condition described by 
the scripture you have quoted?” 

“Why,” replied the reporter, “it is the time just preceding the 
second coming of the Son of Man. All of the prophecies before 
the first coming were about the first coming, and all of the horrible 
descriptions given by the prophets as to the state of the church after 
the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah were descriptions of the 
fallen Abrahamic or Jewish Church, which was to be destroyed and 
cast out at the first coming. All prophecies after the first coming, 
such as were uttered by Christ and the apostles and the Book of 
Revelation, are prophecies of the second coming and of the awful 
condition into which the Apostolic Church had fallen, which neces¬ 
sitated the second coming. The Book of Revelation, from beginning 
to end, is a prophecy of the second coming. All church commenta¬ 
tors admit this, and, strange to say, all without a single exception 
admit that these times are about the time of the second coming. 
During the dark ages there crept into all the church creeds horrible 
heresies as the result of using the mere ‘letter’ of Scripture which 
‘kills’ for the justification of all manner of abominations like slavery, 
war, usury, ‘faith without works,’ and ‘works without faith.’ As it 
was among the Jews, more attention is paid to church temples than 
to church life; more stress placed on modes and ceremonies and par¬ 
ticular kinds of church government than is placed on the great laws 
of mercy, brotherly love, and a pure, loving, and neighborly life. As 
a proof of this, out of the great number of churches, each without 
exception is based on and differentiated from the others by its 
particular way of looking at some mode of church government. The 
Episcopal Church gets its name from the .episcopal mode of its 
church government, the Presbyterian from its government by presby¬ 
ters, the Baptist from its mode of baptism merely, the Lutheran and 
the Wesleyan from names of men. And so of all churches which 
are mere ecclesiasticisms, which have about the same relation to the 


THE CHURCH PLANE DETERMINES ALL OTHERS. 167 

one, true, living Church of Jesus Christ as a painted ship on a 
painted sea has to a great steamship sweeping majestically with its 
living thousands on a living ocean. 

“But the most grievous error, the very crowning sin of all church 
error and transgression, is that the whole so-called orthodox church 
has so mystified the Godhead and so divided it up into three Gods 
that not a single preacher of any orthodox church creed can, with¬ 
out destroying his creed, give either an intelligent or scriptural an¬ 
swer as to who the Lord Jesus Christ is. 

“Now, all of the law and all of the prophets and all of the 
psalms and all of the gospels and all of the epistles and all of the 
apocalyptic revelation declare that the ‘Lord Jesus Christ is the only 
wise God/ that He is ‘the first and the last,’ and that ‘beside Him 
there is no God,’ that He is the ‘Wonderful Counselor,’ the ‘Ever¬ 
lasting Father,’ the ‘Almighty God,’ the ‘Prince of Peace,’ that ‘in 
Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,’ which fullness is 
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which are not separate persons or 
separate Gods, but are the trinity of essentials that constitute the One 
God, just as a man, who is in the image of God, has a soul, a body 
through which the soul acts, and an effect such as a proceeding 
voice that comes from the living soul of the man through his bodily 
organs. The Divine Soul or Life called God, the Father, clothed 
Himself with a body, called the Christ, and through this body medi¬ 
ated and poured out His life or spirit upon men on earth,—which 
proceeding life is called the Holy Spirit. 

“But the orthodox church has made ‘three persons’, and thus 
virtually ‘three Gods;’ and thus they make void the first great com¬ 
mandment, first in statement and first in order of vital importance, 
‘Hear, O Israel, the greatest of all commands is, that the Lord thy 
God is One God and beside Him there is none.’ 

“Any church that does not so recognize in its creed or in its 
faith the Lord Jesus Christ as the ‘Only Wise God’ ‘beside Whom 
there is none else,’ does not know who the Lord Jesus Christ is, 
and needs His second coming, and, painful to say, is more dr less 
in the horrible condition of doctrine or life as that described by John 
in the Book of Revelation in the language I have quoted. The Jews 
could not be brought to believe the things of the first coming. So 
the fallen church will not believe the things prophesied of the second 
coming. Your mother and your wife, and you yourself to some 
extent, have recognized the truth of the list of scripture passages 
which I gave you when you were a student at the University. 


168 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


But mark it, if you begin to preach these truths in the Methodist 
Church, such things as are described in the eighth chapter of the 
Book of Revelation will inevitably follow, as when the seventh seal 
had been opened and the angel took fire from the altar and cast it 
on the earth and there followed ‘thunder and lightning and earth¬ 
quake’ and ‘hail mingled with fire and blood, and trees burnt and 
the green grass withered.’ 

“Now, for instance, if you go into the Northern Methodist 
Church and preach the sayings of the Prince of Peace, you will find 
a time of ‘thunder and lightning, with the worshipers of Mars and 
John Brown. The same in the Southern Methodist Church. Two- 
thirds of its preachers have deserted their pulpits and are in military 
camps whooping up Mars and the Butcher Forrests and slavery. 
They are wreathing their garlands of praise and prayer around the 
brows of such Soudanish military dervishes as go into the butcher- 
some business of battle crying, ‘Allah, Allah, Allah.’ Of this type 
of military saints is Stonewall Jackson, of whom it is said that he 
advocated the raising of the black flag. I tell you, John, that you, 
as a believer in the Prince of Peace, will not be tolerated in the camps 
of Mars. But even if you were, the very moment that you began 
to preach the Lord Jesus Christ as the First and the Last and the 
only wise God and the Everlasting Father, you would be accused of 
heresy by the church elders, and either silenced or cast out. You 
mark my words!” 

John despondingly replied: 

“Oh, I am in hopes that things are not so bad. I do not see 
what else I can do than to preach in the church in which I was born 
and brought up—the Methodist. Certainly there are some good 
people in this church, both North and South. At present I will 
preach in the M. E. Church, as it is called, because the Southern 
Church is so disorganized that it has no place for its present min¬ 
isters. There is no difference doctrinally between the two branches 
and I can preach good Methodist doctrine in either.” 

‘'There it is,” replied the reporter, “good Methodist doctrine! 
But you’ll see your way out. Go ahead. Even Christ preached in 
the Jewish Church, which He knew had made every commandment 
void through the traditions of its elders. I guess you will not sin, 
at least, in preaching in a church whose creed just now you par¬ 
tially think you believe in. But you’ll come out all right; because 
what you frequently say, I guess, is so, the ‘angels have charge over 
you!’ But mark my words. You will not preach long in either one 


THE CHURCH PLANE DETERMINES ALL OTHERS. 


169 


of the Methodist Churches—nor in any other so-called orthodox 
church, unless you are permitted to preach things of doctrine that 
will not leave one stone on top of another of the church creeds.” 

“Well,” replied John, “I have already made arrangements to 
take charge of a work, and we shall see what we shall see. The 
only way to find out a thing is to go ahead; for the prophet Hosea 
says, ‘We shall know if we follow on to know.’ ‘But,’ he continued, 
‘please tell me as pointedly as possible the difference between a mere 
ecclesiastical organization and the church of the Lord Jesus Christ?” 

“Why,” replied the reporter, “an ecclesiasticism is based upon 
and dwells in the mere ‘letter that kills,’ while the true church is a 
living organism born of ‘the Spirit that maketh alive.’ For instance, 
one gets into an ecclesiastical organization by means of some literal 
procedure, such as water baptism, while the only way of getting into 
the real church of the living God, is to be ‘born of the Spirit’—born 
of God—baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost, or with love and 
truth. An ecclesiastical priesthood will tak^ the literal wars of the 
literal Israelites and justify all the horrible butcheries of literal war; 
while the living evangels of the church of the Prince of Peace will 
spiritually discern these scriptures and wage a war of extermination, 
not on other men and women, but on the ‘foes of their own house¬ 
hold’—on all errors of their own minds and all evils of their own 
hearts. 

“Again,” continued the reporter, “an ecclesiastic says: You 
worship in the temple at Jerusalem, while I at an altar on the moun¬ 
tains of Samaria. We worship God in temples and at altars built 
by man’s hand. Our creeds are formulated by man and named after 
man and man’s modes; while the Christian says: I believe that the 
hour is come, and now is, that men need not go to Jerusalem—need 
not go to any earthly organization with its earthly priesthood—to 
worship God, but that true worship is spiritual worship of God as 
a Spirit, and that Christian worship is the worship of the Lord Jesus 
Christ in spirit and in truth, and that this worship is summed up, 
not in creeds formulated by men, but in the two great command¬ 
ments declared by the Head of the living Church of God, of supreme 
love to the only One God of heaven and earth, which love as wor¬ 
ship can only be shown to God by loving all men as you love your¬ 
self. This love or worship of God can only be shown by serving 
men wherever and whenever an occasion arises in which they need 
any kind of service, such as a helping hand, a kindly word, a spirit 
of sympathy, or any of the thousand little everyday neighborly things 


170 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


that come to hand in any of the relations of life, such as that of 
wife and husband, parent and child, citizen and state, neighbor and 
neighbor. In fact, worship God in everything you do,—a kind of 
everyday religion that comes out of the heart, and not a kind of 
put-on Sunday phylactery that has to be worn at some church con¬ 
gregation assembled in some Catholic or Protestant temple. This les¬ 
son is taught in all the Scriptures, and is taught in all its perfection 
in the conversation of the Head of the Church with the woman at 
the well of Samaria, and in His incomparable parable in which He 
compares the ecclesiastical gentry of priest and Levite with a real 
Christian, the Samaritan. 

“So instead of your abruptly breaking up your business and go¬ 
ing up to some Northern or Southern Jericho to engage in church 
work, why don’t you let your light shine wherever Providence calls 
you, which place is any place at which you find yourself up against 
an opportunity of doing anybody any good, just as the Samaritan 
mule-rider was up against a fellow-creature who needed a little as¬ 
sistance. 

“My opinion is that the only wav to get into the church of this 
living God is to get the Spirit of this living God, who is the Lord 
Jesus Christ, in your life and to act it out. It is far better than to 
be a priest in some temple of church worship or a Levite in some 
church service. 

“Thus roughly, but truthfully,” continued the old newspaper 
reporter, “have I endeavored to show you the difference between an 
ecclesiastic and a Christian—between a mere ecclesiastical organiza¬ 
tion of ‘myself and my wife, my son John and his wife, we, us, and 
we four, O Lord, and no more,’ and the church of the living God, 
that takes in its folds everybody who needs companionship or broth¬ 
erhood or help. For over fifty years I have taken the commandment 
of supreme love to the only wise God our Saviour, and the com¬ 
mandment of love to one’s neighbor as to oneself, as my only law 
and prophecy and gospel. I know no Jew, or Gentile, no bond or 
free, no sect or tongue or tribe; but whenever I see any one needing 
help of any kind I help them so far as I can.” 

“Yes,” said John, “I must confess that I have learned more 
from you about the Scriptures than I ever learned from all of the 
‘priests and Levites’ of all the churches put together. But still I 
am going to try to see if there is not some good in Methodism.” 

“Why,” replied the reporter, “as a matter of course there is some 
good in Methodism, just as there is in Mohammedanism, but such 


THE CHURCH PLANE DETERMINES ALL OTHERS. 


171 


good is meat in due season only for those who are in the Methodist or 
Mohammedan state of mind respectively. Why, the worship of 
an idol by an idolater is better than‘no worship; and the Father 
gives to the idolater the meat that is best for him under all the cir¬ 
cumstances of the case. But, John, you. are no idolater to worship 
an idol. You are no Mohammedan to cry, ‘Allah, Allah.’ You 
are no Methodist to believe in three Gods, or shout praises to a 
fourth one known as Mars. You can’t be an ecclesiastic. The dying 
declarations of your mother, the marked passages in her old 
Bible that she left to you, your own intelligence, which you have 
acquired by being independent enough to study the commandments 
of God apart from the construction placed upon them by the church 
elders of the Dark Ages when the church creeds were formulated, 
—these, coupled with the ‘angels that have charge of you,’ will lead 
you finally out of any mere ecclesiasticism into the borders of the 
living Church of the one true living God and Heavenly Father. 
You will see this, and when you do, let me know. You tell me that 
you leave to-morrow for a Methodist field of work. So, good-bye 
until you follow on to know and find out what I say has come to 
pass.” 

This conversation took place in the presence of John’s wife at 
their home, or place of boarding, and John here used some words 
that he in after years used hundreds of times in her presence,—• 
which language did not mean that things w^re as the word indi-^ 
cated. 

Looking up into his wife’s face, John said: 

“Well! well!! well!!!” with rising emphasis on each word. 

His wife, as usual, laughed, if a combination of smiles and 
cheery words could be called laughter, and said: 

“Why, John, we’ve all got to be children before we are grown-up 
people in theology. I think you told me that the Methodist Church 
had a four years’ course of study for all of its ministers. Perhaps 
in the study of this course you will see whether the traditions of the 
Methodist elders to be found in the course of doctrinal teaching are 
true, or whether what your friend has said is true. Then you can 
act according to the light before you. I think that nothing but good 
can copie of people being sincere and considerate and courageous 
enough to do as you said to your friend, ‘follow on to know.’ So we 
will not be weighed down with despondency, but will go as you have 
planned. It hurts me to hear you say, ‘Well, well, well.’ Let us try 
what we have concluded to do, the life of the Methodist ministry, 


172 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


and if we find that as children, we did and spoke mere childish 
things, then when years come and go, and we are grown up in ex¬ 
perience, we shall lay aside* childish things. But, John, we must 
not go into this, or any other serious struggle of life with a kind of 
'well, well, well/ spirit. Cheer up. Here is— Well, you kiss me 
and little Horace. If we can stand it, you can.” 

Little Horace was the first born to John and Clara, and is now 
a cattle man on a cattle ranch in Texas. 

So it was that John, after some years’ work at a certain town 
in Missouri, where he found a good many things come to pass as 
his newspaper friend told him they would, went to his first and last 
M. E. Church Conference of the elders, etc., an account of which will 
be given in our next chapter. 

But in the giving up of ecclesiastical mothers of affection and 
fathers of doctrine, and their brood of ecclesiastical brothers and 
sisters, John in his heart often had resort to the use of “Well, well, 
well!” and his wife just as often became his comforter. 


There was a gentle tap at John’s room door, and in response 
to a cheerful “Come in,” his old friend, the newspaper reporter, 
opened the door and standing in the doorway, said: 

“John, there is one thing that you righteously believe in, and. 
in which you are going to meet with a sad rebuff as well as ill-timed 
rebuke among tfre ministers of a church that has lost the spirit of 
things in the letter and hence has become very materialistic.” 

“What is that?” asked John. 

“The part of your faith that you will be rebuffed and rebuked 
for is one of the best substantiated things found in the Bible, as well 
as one of the most comforting ones. What I allude to is the 'minis¬ 
tration of angels.’ You will find a large per cent of, if not all, 
Methodist ministers not only denying the scriptural doctrine of the 
'ministration of angels,’ but nearly every one of them has such dark- 
age ideas on the subject that they will deny and hoot at the truth 
that all angels were once men and women on the earth,—just like 
the one John wanted to worship, as found in the Book of Revelation, 
just like the angel men who led Lot out of Sodom. The first dozen 
preachers you meet inquire of them on this point, and let me know 
how it is. Good-bye.” 



CHAPTER XX. 


THE THIRTEENTH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. WHAT 
CAME FROM IT TO JOHN’S FATHER. 


Congressman Counsellor Votes for the Amendment—The Action of 
the Party Organs on Said Vote—The Death of John's “Papa”—John Re¬ 
fuses a Gift of Land. 


About this time John received a letter from his father, who was 
then a member of Congress from the old Platte County Border 
Ruffian District of Missouri. The following extract from this letter 
will show for what purposes it is here used. Judge Counsellor wrote 
from Washington City: 

The question of the ratification of the constitutional amendment abolish¬ 
ing slavery is now before the House for action. As usual, the subject is 
drifting into mere partisan pot-house politics. It seems that nothing, how¬ 
ever high, or holy, or patriotic, can escape being polluted by the government 
that partisans spew, over it. The “Reds,” under the leadership of Thad 
Stevens and his kind, are endeavoring to make all of the partisan capital pos¬ 
sible out of this great measure for their party, and are pushing the Demo¬ 
cratic minority into a bitter partisan opposition to it. And, strange to say, 
nearly all of the Democrats are suffering themselves to go on record as 
against ratifying this amendment. Many of them, being prodded by the par¬ 
tisan “Reds,” are saying many very indiscreet and intemperate things. This 
pleases the “Reds” greatly. In fact, it is the very trap the wary “Red” has 
expressly set for the unwary partisan Democrat. The Vallandingham school 
of partisans has even gone so far as to threaten my defeat for re-election to 
Congress in case I vote for the ratification of this amendment. But you know 
that I am not controlled by threats. Whenever duty and conscience call, my 
response has ever been, and will be in this case, “Yea, yea, I am present and 
ready for action.” Both duty and conscience command that this long vexed 
and vexing question be settled by law; and I shall vote for it. 

But nine-tenths of the Democratic members will vote against it. I know 
the power of the “party machine,” and doubtless this vote will cost me my seat 
in Congress. Such men as Judge Birch and the panderers to the passions and 
prejudices of the old bitter proslavery purblind propagandists will use their 
passions and prejudices to cripple and if possible to politically kill me. Well, 

( 173 ) 





174 


JOHN COUNSELLOR S EVOLUTION. 


well, One greater than I am was crucified by partisans. Why should I seek 
exemption by shunning the line of duty? I never have shirked. I never 
have “wobbled on the spindle.” Nor shall I do so now. 

It is true that, had I had my way, I would years ago have settled the 
slavery question, and would, even at this day, settle it, if I could, under the 
old Jeffersonian plan of gradual emancipation with compensation to the 
owners, coupled with colonizing the freedman where they could have homes 
under their own vine and fig tree. 

I had a talk this morning with Mr. Lincoln, and he favors this plan, but 
says that partisanship and passions raised by the war render such a pacific 
and equitable way of settling the matter now impossible. He regretted that 
men will go to such extremes as to get themselves into conditions in which 
that which is the highest and best cannot be made available. I have heard 
you speak of the doors of the third or highest heavens being at this day, 
on account of the wickedness of the people, closed against about every man 
on earth, and the doors of the second or next highest heavens being closed 
against most of the people on earth; but the doors of the lowest or first 
heavens being open to all. However this may be, I know that the action of 
the proslavery propagandists has made the system of gradual emancipation 
impossible; and I suppose we will have to take the third best thing in the 
premises. And it is but the part of wisdom for men to take the best thing 
that is practicable. So I will vote for the ratification of the thirteenth amend¬ 
ment that forever by law abolishes slavery in our country,—though I am sure 
that the “Red” element in my district, co-operating with the rabid proslavery 
inopportunes to be found in the Democratic Party, will beat me for Congress. 
However this may be, my duty, my best judgment, and all of the memories 
of your now sainted mother call me to go forward in getting rid, as far as 
possible, of a thing that all of our old Virginia ancestors longed to get rid 
of in their day. 

To this letter, John at once replied : 

Dear Papa: 

You know how much I have always loved you, especially since dear, 
dear mamma’s death. I have not only loved you, but have admired and 
been proud of you for always being “present and ready for action” at the 
roll-call of duty. If possible, your letter stating what your action will be 
on the thirteenth constitutional amendment makes me admire you more than 
ever; and in view of its most probably costing you your seat in Congress, I 
will say that I love you more than ever. And I am satisfied that dear 
mamma, now in heaven, will do the same. I think that mamma will have a 
special call of the angels for planting new flowers to be ready for wreathing 
new garlands around your brow when you shall leave the earth and be raised, 
or resurrected, up into the heavens. 

But while I know that such is the view that will be taken of your action 
in heaven, yet the will of heaven is very far as yet from being the will of 
earth; and hence I concur with you that this vote will cost you your seat in 
the next Congress. The “Reds” have been opposed to you ever since you set 



THE THIRTEENTH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. 175 

yourself against their Robespierre programme. And the party machine of 
your own party is equally as merciless as the “Red” Robespierre-ites against 
any one who has the independence to refuse to do its dirty work. But go 
forward! Let us do right though the heavens fall! As the poet Browning 
says, 

“Life is probation, 

And the earth no goal, 

But starting point for man; 

Compel him to strive, 

Which means in man, 

As good as reach the goal.” 

If the Democratic Party puts itself on record as opposing all measures 
of advance, it will die the death of the inopportune. If it continues to look 
backward and not forward, it will and ought to meet the fate of Lot’s wife. It 
may kill such men as you, and Rollins, and Blair, and Benton, but such kill¬ 
ing will be like the Jews’ “sawing the prophets asunder” and crucifying the 
Christs of their only salvation. 

Yes, doubtless, history will repeat itself, and you will be “sawn asunder.’’ 
But you have always taught me, “Do your duty, and in doing so, never 
wobble on the spindle.” Now if my teacher, who is my own dear papa, should 
go back on his own teachings in the days toward the end of his life, his son 
would weep on earth, and his son’s old Virginia mother would weep in 
heaven! 

And sure enough, just as soon as Congressman Counsellor re¬ 
corded his vote in favor of ratifying the thirteenth constitutional 
amendment that forever by law abolished slavery in the United 
States, there commenced a systematic attack on him by the party 
organs. One of these, in Platte County, said: 

Our Fourth District Congressman, Counsellor, has deserted his friends 
and gone over, horse, foot, and artillery, to the enemy. He has joined the 
ranks of the abolitionists pure and simple. Let him look to them for any re- 
election to Congress. He certainly cannot expect the support of the Demo¬ 
cratic Party. If so, he will not and should not get such support. 

Another paper in Clinton County, the home of Judge Birch, 
came out in head-lines of box-car letters as follows: 

OUR CONGRESSMAN DESERTS US. 

HE SELLS OUT TO THAD STEVENS. 

It pains an old-time Democratic heart to see a Congressman, elected by 
the party, destroy not only his party, but betray the whole Southern people, 
by voting to abolish slavery as our Congressman has done. The unsheathed 
party knife must be used on all such recreants; and this paper, as one of the 
organs of pure and undefiled democracy, will not only use the party knife, 
but all of the cutlery and gunnery of the great party arsenal, not only to kill 


176 JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 

off such miscreants as present Congressman Counsellor, but will employ at 
our own expense a sculptor to engrave on his tomb the Sadduceean epitaph of 
“No Resurrection Forever.” 

A Clay County party organ said: 

Our indignation knows no bounds; in fact, indignation cannot be re¬ 
strained from turning to wrath itself at the very mention of the traitorous 
conduct of our Congressman Counsellor in voting for Thad Stevens’ pet and 
final abolition measure called the thirteenth amendment. That amendment 
is the summing up of all the villainy and robbery and rapine against which 
the fathers of Democracy have for generations warned us. How a Demo¬ 
cratic Congressman from a Democratic district can vote for such an exceed¬ 
ingly undemocratic measure nobody except a tricky politician who has sold 
out to the Thad Stevens crowd of Abs can imagine. A few Democratic 
votes were needed to pass the measure; and the abolition outfit had money 
enough to buy such as Rollins and Counsellor and others, who are for sale. 
Shame! shame ! shame! Yea, something more effective than shame! Let us 
at the first meeting of our party sachems put on our party war paint, and 
dance the party war dance, and go on the war path for the political scalps of 
all such deserters from the Democratic reservation as old Counsellor has 
proved himself to be. 

Even a paper, the office of which was afterward ‘“gutted” by a 
mob, and in behalf of which Judge Counsellor sacrificed his life in 
an effort in the Federal Court at St. Louis to recover damages, even 
this paper, before the sacrifice of his life in its behalf, by its scurri¬ 
lous abuse of Congressman Counsellor for betraying Democracy, 
might have caused him, as he felt its cold party dagger stabbed into 
his back, to exclaim, “Et tu, Brute!” 

Perhaps it may be of interest to give a personal analysis of these 
party organ editors. One of them was a born and brought-up 
Yankee, and had to “whoop up” to keep from being “suspicioned” 
and ostracized. One of them was a journeyman printer in the em¬ 
ploy of a chronic candidate for office, who had money enough to em¬ 
ploy this cat’s-paw of an editor. One of them was one of the so- 
called preachers who sat nodding assent to the suggestions of Senator 
Emerald to “stuff” ballot boxes in Kansas, at the time when Judge 
Counsellor appealed to the so-called ministers to cease worshiping 
Mars and worship Jesus, as related in Chapter IV of this history. 
One of these party organ grinders had been publicly horsewhipped 
by the Colonel A. P. R. spoken of before in this work. While such 
grinders of party organs are a disgrace to the high and holy call¬ 
ing of public journalism, yet, as a general thing, by their unscrupu¬ 
lous methods they manipulate party candidates and party conven- 


THE THIRTEENTH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. 


177 


lions, and control party nominations. One of their favorite modes 
of operating is to run in what are called “dark horses,” or by “stock¬ 
ing” a convention with sufficient delegates to hold the balance of 
power between candidates, and then casting this balance of power 
against the object of their venom. In this manner Judge Counsel¬ 
lor’s nomination was defeated in the Democratic convention afjer 
his vote was cast for the thirteenth amendment. 

A few years after that the office of one of these papers that 
had denounced him was taken possession of and gutted by Federal 
soldiers or militia. The old Judge regarded such conduct of the 
military as destructive of the freedom of the press. Suit for dam¬ 
ages against the officers in command of these troops was instituted 
in the Federal Court at St. Louis. The old “Conservator” was 
counsel for the editor, and made the greatest speech of his life in 
defense of the liberties of the press, from the effects of which he 
became exhausted and died—“died,” as General Blair said, “in full 
harness, at the front of the columns of Liberty and Law and Order.” 

He had filled in full measure offices in all departments of the 
State government, legislative, judicial, executive, with safety to the 
public, with pride to his friends and family, and with a conscience 
void of offense. 

With such men in public life there would be no civil wars, no 
partisan intolerance, no sectarian bigotry, no special franchise to a 
dominant and favored few; but there would be a government of the 
people for all of the people. 

The last time John saw his father was at the gate of the yard 
of the Counsellor home in the Border Ruffian region where his mother 
was wont to go out to see John depart from home and come out to 
see him on his return.- John was parting with his “papa,” as he 
always called him, for the last time on earth, when the following 
conversation took place: 

“John,” the old Judge said, “the ministry is a poor place for 
accumulating anything but treasures in heaven. In the mean time 
we all need some earthly treasures. I have a fine tract of land in 
Clinton County that I am going to deed to you.” 

Now, all his life John had entered into the grace of “it is more 
blessed to give than to receive,” and replied: 

“Oh, papa, I appreciate your kindness, but somehow—somehow 
or other I’ve always wanted to help you—to give you something— 
and I really feel that just now I would rather you would not give 
me anything at all until I can, somehow or other, pay you for the 

7 


178 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


thousand little things and the many big ones that you have all my 
life been giving me. So let the matter rest until I can some day in 
some manner pay you a little of the debt that, if ever a son did owe 
to a father, I owe to you. Let it rest, papa; let it rest until I can do 
something for you in return.” 

As the hack containing John and his wife drove away they saw 
“papa” with bare head, white with the snows of many a winter, 
standing at the old, old home gate, looking up the road after them. 
Clara, with tears in her eyes, said to her husband: 

“John, you ought to have lived in the golden age of the world. 
However, as you say gold is typical of love, our little world is 
golden; and 1 love you more and more for your action in asking papa 
not to give you the land.” 

As a matter of history, notwithstanding this action on the part 
of John, he and Clara never had any lack of land. In fact, in after 
years in far-away Texas, they were what is called “land poor,” by 
having more land to pay taxes on than they could use. 

Perhaps we might appropriately close this chapter of Judge 
Counsellor’s closing life with a glance at the changed scenes of his 
old home. 

In the same Border Ruffian county seat at which the bodeful 
things described in the first and second chapters of this book took 
place, some nine years later took place other things in some respects 
in keeping with, and in other respects, very violently in contrast to 
those that occurred on Saturday and Sunday before the first Monday 
in September, 1856, though some of the same parties figured in both 
scenes. 

The war was over. The lambs and the lions had changed 
places. Walter Chancellor, who had made the great speech in the 
legislature against the coming war, had at the head of his regiment 
fought during every month of that war; but the war being over in 
the field, it was also all over with him. He was judge of the circuit 
court. 

Court was in session. The Draconian code of the celebrated 
Drake Constitution was in full sway. Under it no preacher could 
preach, or lawyer practice law, who had ever in any wise had a 
kindly feeling for the so-called rebel. Judge Counsellor declared the 
prescriptive clauses to be contrary to the very genius of free and re¬ 
publican institutions, and allowed preachers to preach and lawyers 
to practice without taking the oath prescribed by the Draconian code. 


THE THIRTEENTH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. 


179 


On the first Monday of his court there was a large crowd of 
returned Federal soldiers in town, some of them drinking heavily. 
A large number of these organized and swore that no such judge 
as Chancellor should be allowed to hold court. The sheriff was in 
seeming sympathy with the mob. The mob cudgeled and bulldozed 
good citizens here and there, killing one and perhaps more. They 
declared that old Judge Counsellor should not be permitted even to 
walk the streets of his own county-seat town. The old judge, hear¬ 
ing of this, at once saddled his horse, rode into the county-seat, con¬ 
fronted the drunken leader of the mob on the street and said to him: 

“Jim, I understand that you and your crowd have declared that 
I cannot walk the streets of this town. How is this ?” 

“Some of us did say/'* said the leader, “that no man, however 
large or little, who held up for rebels should be permitted to walk 
these streets.” 

“Well,” replied the old judge, “who is the ‘somebody’ and what 
do you mean by ‘holding up for rebels’ ? Do you mean that a man 
who is in favor of law and order, and who is determined to see that 
the orders of our civil courts are respected, is a rebel sympathizer? 
If so, I’m one.” 

In the mean time a great crowd of soldiers had gathered about, 
which emboldened Jim, the leader of the mob, and he began to curse 
the old judge. Whereupon the old man advanced upon Jim and 
unarmed poured out the vials .of his wrath on the mob. Perhaps 
blood would have been shed, as here and there in the crowd were 
drunken yells of “Go to him, Jim!” “Shoot the d—n old rebel 
sympathizer!” but by this time a posse of peaceable citizens had been 
organized under the direction of the court and came filing down the 
street with Judge Chancellor at their head. They demanded the im¬ 
mediate and unconditional surrender of the mobocrats for contempt 
of cofirt. Some of the mob demurred and pulled their guns. The 
captain of the court posse ordered his men to present arms and cock 
their guns. He then said to the mob : 

“The first man that makes a motion to shoot will be shot in his 
tracks.” 

Many of the mob had been in the judge’s regiment, and knew 
that he never wasted many words when the time for action came. 
So some of these surrendered at once. Others demurred, but all 
were arrested, marched into ‘the court-house and held on peace bonds 
to answer for trying to break up the court. 


180 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


But this mob finally got in its revenge on this law-and-order 
judge. The Jacobins were in the majority in a legislature elected 
under bayonet rule. This legislature impeached this upright judge 
because he declared the inquisitorial oath of the Draconian Code as 
contrary to the very spirit of liberty itself. Just about this time 
the Jacobins were so violent that such men as General Frank P. 
Blair and B. Gratz Brown, who had been all during the Border 
Ruffian troubles Fremont and Lincoln Republicans, left the Jacobin 
party. 

Brown was nominated for governor by all of the independent 
forces. Blair took the stump. Everywhere his life was threatened. 
He spoke with his pistol lying on the rostrum at his side. At many 
of his speakings men were killed by the revolutionary element. The 
“Rebs” were now on the law-and-order side of things. The “Reds” 
were for about such mobocratic violence as that portrayed in our 
second chapter. But the better sentiment prevailed. Brown was 
elected governor. Law and order once more got in the saddle. The 
Draconian Code was repealed, and all citizens, under such aegis as 
Jupiter gave to Minerva, once more, after years of chaos and 
anarchy, enjoyed equally all of the privileges and franchises of a 
common citizenship. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


JOHN’S GIVING UP OF COUNTRY AND KINDRED ECCLESIASTI¬ 
CALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY. 


John’s Giving Up of Country and Kindred Ecclesiastically and Pro¬ 
fessionally—The Campaign of Bim, the Original Candidate—How “Heel¬ 
ers” Came About—John’s First “Charge” at Louisiana, Missouri—His 
Address on the Assassination of Lincoln—He Presents the Bible Doc¬ 
trine That What is Sowed Must be Reaped, and that Assassination and 
Anarchy Are But the “Spawn” of Militarism—His Address Causes Com¬ 
motion and his Removal to Other Parts by the “Church” Authorities. 


It was now in the first days of April, 1865, when John was. 
seemingly, to give up father and mother and brothers and sisters and 
all kindred for what he then deemed “Christ’s sake.” He had virtu¬ 
ally been born into the life of what is called the legal profession. 
This he found to be so utterly degraded and corrupt that his con¬ 
science would not permit him to live off of the prostitution which 
priests of that profession almost universally practiced by taking hire 
on any side of any question on which a fat fee was first offered, and, 
inside the court precincts, by aiding criminals to escape justice when 
hired for a money price to do so, which act, outside of the court, 
would have sent the practitioner to the penitentiary as aider and 
abettor of the criminal. This mother—this professional mother—■ 
John now determined to give up, though in giving it up he saw the 
sacrifice of all his early ambitions. 

And there was party politics with all of its honors, to say noth¬ 
ing of all of its pelf, this John also determined to give up. “Come 
out of her, my people!” sounded in his ears as a trumpet and 
drowned the hopes and ambitions that he had cherished from his 
earliest youth. This sacrifice was compelled by the definite knowl¬ 
edge that all of those who were successful in party politics were not 
of the olive, nor of the fig, nor of the vine nature; but were, as de¬ 
clared by the prophet Jotham in the ninth chapter of the Book of 
( 181 ) 





182 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Judges, but “brambles” bristling with all of the thorns that a self- 
scheming and self-pushing and self-important selfishness could bring 
forth. 

John was disgusted with the party Abimelech and the “hired 
and vain persons which followed him.” And he saw the dangerous 
character or the “Baalberiths” who furnished the “campaign funds” 
to hire the henchmen of the party Abimelechs who would destroy 
and devour and utterly burn up all of the “tall cedars of Lebanon” 
and kill oft* all genuine patriots of undoubted intelligence and integ¬ 
rity. * v 

John’s attitude to the party Abimelechs is shown by the follow¬ 
ing article written by him for a leading daily independent paper: 

THE VERY FIRST CANDIDATE. 


Origin of tiie Place Seekers—How Heelers Sprung Up—Where the Returning Board 

Got in Its First Work. 


We insert the following article as published in the Sunday edition of the 
Dallas News of December 5, 1897, for several reasons: 

First, to show the rise of the so-called divine right of kings; and, 

Second, to show how candidates even in this day begin and conduct their 
candidacy. We suggest also the reading of the eighth chapter of First Book 
of Samuel for further reading about kingship, or the people being ruled by 
others instead of ruling themselves, as they would do under a direct legisla¬ 
tive system of government. Keep in mind that every kind of one man rul¬ 
ing over others, whether as supreme law making or supreme franchiser to 
levy tax on public travel, etc., is a species of kingship. We believe in the 
prophets, the law, and the gospel, not as interpreted by sectarian scribes, but 
as uttered of Jehovah, and believe that better lessons can be drawn from the 
pages of the Bible for everyday life, personally, politically, and spiritually, 
than from any other source. In fact, the Bible is the great hill country in 
whose foundations are stored up the everlasting foundations of truth, which are 
ready to flow in cleansing and life-giving power into and through all planes 
of life just as soon as channels can be had for their outflow from the foun¬ 
tains and their inflow through the plains and valleys wherein the people 
dwell. And we honestly believe that direct legislation is the channel on the 
political plane through which life, like a river of water, coming from its 
original source and reservoired in all the people will flow out direct from the 
people and flow direct into every law by which the life of the people is bodily 
organized and administered. Following is the News’ article: 

Mr. Thomas B. King, of Stephenville, was in a talkative mood. The 
latter-day custom of self-announcement as candidates for office was the line 
of thought that found utterance. 




JOHN GIVING UP COUNTRY AND KINDRED. 


183 


History is repeating itself. To determine from very high and alto¬ 
gether authoritative sources what must be the true nature of such pushers of 
themselves, let me cite the instance of the first candidate for public promotion. 

“In the ninth chapter of the Book of Judges we find an account of the 
very first candidate for king, or rulership. A politician by the name of 
Abimelech had a big lot of kinsfolks called his ‘mother’s brethren.’ He com¬ 
menced his campaign by communications with all the family. 

“The family seemingly, on their own motion, hadn’t thought of the mat¬ 
ter until it was pushed on them by their ambitious kinsman, by being re¬ 
minded in Candidate Abimelech that T am your bone and your flesh.’ 

“Bro. Bim was a wary politician. He easily persuaded his big family of 
kinsfolks, so that not only ‘did their hearts incline towards-him,’ but they 
furnished him a campaign fund. The campaign fund, however, didn’t seem 
to belong to them. There was a money lender by the name of Baalberith, who, 
perhaps was a manufacturer with an axe to grind, or in some manner a dealer 
in futures contingent on Bim’s election. 

“They got the campaign slush from Baalberith, who no doubt was to be 
well provided for in case of Bim’s election. 

“Backed by his mother’s brethren and this campaign fund of ‘threescore 
and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Baalberith,’ Candidate Abime¬ 
lech took the field. With the slush fund he ‘hired vain and light persons,’ 
who, from it being stated that these ‘hired, vain, and light persons’ followed 
him, were no doubt somewhat kin to if not the ancestors of our modern 
‘heelers.’ 

“The first thing to be done, and the first thing actually done, Abimelech 
‘slew his own brethren.’ This ‘slaying of brethren’ is one of the main facts 
accomplished by a candidate pushing himself; it keeps others of the same 
political family out of the field—especially the modest ones. All self-pushing 
politicians understand how a pre-announcement with a few preconcerted 
‘hired heelers’ to whoop up things has often kept better men out of the field. 
We have an instance exactly in point, but for fear of it being personal I 
forbear to relate it. No doubt all the News readers have a-case in point. 
By killing brethren and bulldozing the people, Abimelech was not elected, 
but all the same,' so far as he was concerned, he ‘was made king.’ The sub¬ 
sequent career of this self-pushing politician as king showed that he was 
an ‘n. g.’ He was not the kind that the Nazarene recommended when he 
excluded from the list of good rulers those who sought the chief places, and 
included those who were candidates for the lowest places at the feast. 

“The good old prophet Jotham, as related in the same chapter, sized 
up exactly the character of these self-pushing place-seekers. Jotham called 
the people together and sized up the situation, and especially the dangerous 
character of the man who pushed his candidacy for promotion over others. 
Jotham cited that the trees on a certain occasion besought the olive to be 
‘king over them.’ The olive declined, saying that it had great respect for 
God and the neighbor, and, inferentially, that the rulership-king-business had 


184 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


nothing in it good for God or man. The olive, in spiritual signification, repre¬ 
sents the very highest order of man. Certainly these strivers in indecent 
haste to be promoted are not of the olive family. 

“The next one called on to be a candidate wa§ the fig. . The fig, though 
of a high type of manhood, is not as high as the olive. However, the fig, 
out of self-respect for his own ‘sweetness of nature/ declined. 

“There is not much sweetness of nature in a self-pushing candidate—at 
least not enough to be much of a hinderance to his ‘going to be promoted over 
others / especially where there is a good deal of pie up toward the head of the 
counter. 

“The olive being too good and the fig too sweet for ‘going to be promoted/ 
the next resort was to the vine. The vine is somewhat clinging in its nature, 
and to some degree needs props; nevertheless the vine concluded that its na¬ 
ture was such that it could do better by cheering others than to be itself 
cheered by ‘promotion over others/ So the vine declined. 

“So will any man decline who is of the olive, vine, or fig caste of char¬ 
acter. If not, why did the olive, the fig, and the vine decline to be promoted 
over others? As sure as the word of God is true, so is it true that men 
who push themselves into places of ‘promotion over others’ are not of the 
vine, or the olive, or the fig family. 

“But of what family are they ? 

“Why, exactly of that family represented by the kind of bristling bucca¬ 
neer which ‘accepted gladly’ the promotion over others. This was ‘the 
bramble.’ The very name indicates the cast of character of a bristling, self¬ 
pushing, selfish, Billy Buncombe place-seeker, and further comment is un¬ 
necessary. 

“It has long been recognized that our best men are not in public life. 
The sordid and selfish brambles are encumbering the ground, and in the 
language of the prophet Jotham, ‘the fire, coming out, the bramble devours 
the cedars of Lebanon.’ 

“The very fact that these brambles are self-seeking, and ‘pushing them¬ 
selves’ on the people, is evident that they do not belong to the higher orders 
of citizenship—that they are not of the family of the olive, which hath ‘regard 
to God and the neighbor;’ nor of kin to the fig, which hath ‘sweetness’ and 
good fruit; nor of the same blood as the vine, which ‘hath cheer for others/ 
—but are thoroughbred brambles. 

“No doubt, in the light of the other life, when all secret things are 
made manifest, that the real character of each and all of our public men who 
‘push themselves’ on the people by pre-announcement and suffer themselves to 
be pushed by heelers and bv Baalberiths, who expect something to be re¬ 
turned for favors shown, all this class of men, however great Goliaths they 
may be here, will be weighed and found wanting. 

“Some of them, if a tree is known by its fruits, can be seen by even 
common-sense men as wanting here on earth. Take the country over, and 
some of those who have announced for high places have drawn over $100,000 
as pay for public services, about like the man who demanded pay for the well 
that he never dug. 


JOHN GIVING UP COUNTRY AND KINDRED. 


185 


“It is true that they have dug a good many pits into which they and 
their fellows have tumbled, but not one single well of living, water to quench 
the thirst of a thirsty people have they dug. Not one, not one! 

“If the people continue to let themselves be imposed upon by this old 
line of place-seekers, then the whole outfit of followers and the followed will, 
as heretofore, fall into a pit, out of which it will take a very large-sized Sab¬ 
bath day’s job to extricate the country!” 

Here and now, in 1901, John is more and more confirmed in his 
conviction that place-seekers as found in ordinary party politicians 
are not of the type of character represented by the olive and the 
fig and the vine; but. as with the first candidate, “Bim,” are veri¬ 
table “brambles,” and leeches barnacled on the body politic. 

Talcq any State in the Union and analyze the “pay” that “our 
rulers” receive for their services, and we shall find a striking proof 
of what the old Prophet Samuel urged (First Samuel viii. 11-17), 
that, if the people put their trust in rulers, giving the rulers power to 
rule, the rulers would get everything and the people nothing. 

So with an unutterable aversion to “party politics,” and to the 
prostitution of the legal profession that led him “to hate” all of his 
former life, John was now to forsake all with the hope of finding a 
“hundred fold” in another field—in . the field of an ecclesiasticism, 
which, as matter of fact, was responsible, along with others of its 
kind, for the pollution to be found in all planes of political, com¬ 
mercial, and professional life below it. It is true that John found 
the “persecution” predicted of such forsaking of former life and 
kindred; and it is also true that he found the “hundred fold” of 
houses and kindred, but not in the country into which he was just 
then going. But perhaps he had to go through this ecclesiastical 
wilderness on his way to a Canaan of milk and honey. 

However, let us follow in some of his footsteps, actually trodden 
in the days of 1865. John had “taken work” in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church under the direction of a presiding elder—Shu- 
fellow—the conference not yet being in session. He was given per¬ 
haps the wealthiest and the largest congregation in the borders of 
the conference, at Louisiana, over on the upper Mississippi River. 
Here he found a great many good, humble Christian men and 
women, and found, or rather he at once went up against, a good many 
—well, it is hard to characterize them,—whether “holier than thou” 
pharisees “thanking Gawd” that they were “Gawd’s” peculiar elect 
to destroy the heathen; or whether unconverted “Sauls of Tarsus” 
breathing out threatenings and slaughter; or whether co-workers 


186 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


with the party politicians on the opposite side of those % with whom 
Brother McNal had worked along in the fifties; or whether, as di¬ 
vinely appointed agent of Jehovah (according to their very mistaken 
belief) to kill outright all the inhabitants of the Southern Confed¬ 
eracy, men, women, and children, and possess themselves of their 
chattels, cattle, and churches; or.whether some of them were, as 
the Revelator in the apocalyptic vision saw the citizens of a church 
that had “fallen, fallen” from the grace of Jesus Christ, the Prince 
of Peace, had become worshipers at the altar of Mars, the God of 
War. 

The very first Sabbath day after John arrived at the place of 
“his charge” was the one following the black Friday that witnessed 
the assassination of President Lincoln. All who lived at that time 
know how utterly frenzied passion, like a Noah’s flood, swept away 
about every remnant of all persons, places, and things of that world 
known as “Charity” that hopeth and believeth all things for the best, 
and faltereth not in its mission of overcoming all things with the 
truth. 

The time had come to John—had come earlier than he expected 
—to see whether or not the words of his University friend, the news¬ 
paper man, were true when he stated to John that in the ordinary 
church circles of the day ribald sectarianism had supplanted genuine 
Christianity, and that the worship of the God of Vengeance had su¬ 
perseded the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God of Love. 

However, John had made up his mind to follow the Prince of 
Peace, although the high priests and elders might be disposed to 
crucify him by rejecting His teachings, which is the same as rejecting 
Him. So, in order that the services that day might not be such as 
actually took place in all the temples of Mars—in order that the 
blood-thirsty cry of the wicked for vengeance—for even two eyes for 
one eye, and two or a thousand teeth for one tooth—might be allayed 
and rebuked— and in order that the calm and considerate voice of the 
Prince of Peace might be heard in His own (ostensible) temple, he 
took as the subject of his public address the following: 

THE CAUSE AND CURE OF THE ASSASSINATION OF RULERS. 

And he spoke in substance as follows: 

Every event of magnitude that occurs in the history of a nation should 
be an occasion for the people of such nation learning some useful lesson. 
The assassination of President Lincoln, at the hands of a fanatic, has more or 


JOHN GIVING UP COUNTRY AND KINDRED. 


187 


less touched the indignation and horror of nearly every man, woman, and child, 
not only in the United States, but all over the world; and an occasion of 
such magnitude as this should be laid hold of by the public press, by the pulpit, 
and by the political philosophers, to impress some useful lesson on the people 
—a lesson that does not consist in mere words of condolence to bereaved 
friends, or of mere anathema spit out and fulminated against the great crim¬ 
inal that committed the horrible crime, or on a mere stretching of cruel in¬ 
genuity in planning laws that partake of vengeance, cruelty, and savagery as 
a preventive of such barbarous acts as the killing of rulers. So far as I have 
seen to date the above indulgences have been about the only thing that the 
press and the preachers as leaders of public thought have indulged in. Con¬ 
dolences are good in their place and there has been much of condolence justi¬ 
fied in this cruel murder of a good man. But condolences teach no good and 
useful lesson. There has been a great deal of well merited rebuke and de¬ 
nunciation against the outlaw that shocked humanity with his murderous 
bullet. 

There has been a great outcry for vengeance and for inventing some un¬ 
christian and uncivilized way or law to visit punishment on the offender. All 
of this revenge and ways of inhuman cruelty to execute vengeance are as a 
matter of course not only in bad taste, but partake of the very cruelty and 
crime that are sought to be obviated. What then is the great and chief lesson 
to be learned from the assassination of the President of the nation? 

I unhesitatingly say that such lesson is this: Learn the cause of such 
murderous, acts and then seek to remove the cause. 

All sensible people will admit that the only way to cure an evil is to do 
away with the cause. All other preventatives are mere temporary palliatives 
or court plasters or at best dabbling in the stream with filters instead of mak¬ 
ing the fountain clean. Hence we inquire, what is the cause of anarchy? 

To determine this righteously we must recall or recur to certain prin¬ 
ciples that are so fundamental and so enduring and unchangeable that heaven 
and earth will pass away before one jot or one tittle of these principles will 
pass away. Of these principles we mention: 

ist. That every seed produces after its own kind. We will not offer 
argument in proof of this principle, because even were it not declared by God 
Himself in the first chapter of Genesis, yet all men know it to be the case. 
Hence we declare, 

2d. That whatever a man sows he shall reap. This is not only declared 
in God’s Word, but by all experience and by all nature. 

3d. That the sower will reap more than he sows, sowing one grain he 
may reap a hundred and sowing a hundred he may reap ten thousand. Or 
at least sowing to the wind the sower will reap an increase of wind in a 
whirlwind. Now, then, in exact accordance with the principles that ..every 
seed produces after its own kind and what a man sows that shall he raise 
in multiplied amount, it is declared in the same book of Wisdom in which 
the above principles are declared as follows: “All they that take up the 
sword shall perish with the sword.” This is based on Genesis, which declares, 


188 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Whoso sheddeth man’s' blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” In keep¬ 
ing with this is the Divinely declared truth that “He that diggeth a pit shall 
fall into it.” “He made-a pit and ,digged it and is fallen into the ditch which 
he made,” “His own mischief shall return on his own head and his violent 
dealing shall come down on his own pate.” 

Similar sentiments to these, showing that what men sow they must in¬ 
evitably reap, are not only declared and redeclared by line on line, precept 
on precept, in Holy Writ, but are affirmed by all experience. 

Let us now apply these principles: 

The rulers of 'the nations are without one single exception the fol¬ 
lowers of Mars and not the followers of the Prince of Peace in this that they 
are sowing from generation to generation brimstone and bullets and bayonets 
and bombshells and swords. By their standing armies they are continually 
shedding blood of their neighbors. It is true that they are doing these bloody 
deeds of killing under form and semblance of law. So we may say that men 
and women have been sold on the auction block and bills of sale of their 
bodies and lives made to the highest bidder under the form of law. The 
Psalmist declares that “the throne of iniquity itself frameth mischief by law.” 
A thing may be done by law and yet the inquiry still is, what of the prin¬ 
ciple involved in the law? Is this killing of men by wholesale any more 
righteous than the killing of one man by another man? 

Are things in the lump just that are not just in each and every particu¬ 
lar? If so, what becomes of the Master’s doctrine as expressly declared in 
Luke, which says: “He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much?” 

If one cannot kill his enemy by violence such as used by Booth in the 
killing of Lincoln, without committing murder, without violating the com¬ 
mandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” how then can a ruler kill thousands, or 
cause to be killed tens of thousands, without being unjust,—if not, so far as 
the law of God is concerned, committing “murder,” perhaps without 
knowing it? ' 

And if any one, whether peasant or prince, whether ruler or ruled, sheds 
man’s blood, may he not reasonably expect that he will not be exempt from 
the reaping of what he has sowed? He has sowed with the Word of God, 
which declares that “whatsoever one sows that shall he also reap,” before 
his eyes. Not only is this God’s law, but it is the very law. of nature 
itself. Not only is it the law of God and the law of nature, but it is a 
law approved of all sensible men. Who would like to live in Hafed’s “World 
of Chance” which in our youth all of us read about in the old Reader, where 
men sowed wheat and reaped hemp, and planted figs that bore thorns, and 
fire chilled and turned water into ice. and men’s own begotten progeny were 
born dogs or wolves? 

No, brethren, however hard it may seem that they who sow to war 
with its killings, with its bullets and violence, shall reap violence and bullets 
and killing, none of us would alter this law if we could. Otherwise we would 
exchange God’s world of law and order for Hafed’s “World of Chance.” 
’We must hew to the line of God’s truth, let the chips fall where they may. 


JOHN GIVING UP COUNTRY AND KINDRED. 


189 


We all lament the killing of President Lincoln with lamentation like that 
of a woman mourning the death of a child, or a child the death of a parent, 
even though the death sprung naturally out of their own sowing, as is nearly 
always the case. So far as I am individually concerned, I have regarded 
President Lincoln as the very best of all the rulers of the kingdoms of this 
earth, and in almost every respect as much superior to the ordinary party 
politician of the day as a patriot is superior to a partisan. As a member of 
a State government that had daily proof of his sincere wish to restore law 
and order to the land, I have learned to respect and admire him beyond what 
millions of his own partisans do. But, as the head and representative of a 
warring people, he has been a man of war, a man of shedding blood, and he 
has only reaped what he and they have sowed, because the most inevitable 
of all laws is that “whosoever sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood 
be shed.” 

This is a law so fundamental that not a jot or a tittle can possibly fail 
of fulfillment, any more than the law that if you sow wheat you will reap 
wheat! And the law is good, and approved of all sensible men. It is neither 
wise nor good for us to evade the fulfillment or truth of this great law, how¬ 
ever great and beloved may be the victim of its working. Let the great law of 
God stand, though not only all of the rulers of the earth fall, but the earth 
itself fail to stand, yea, though the heavens pass away. At least, let the present 
“old” heaven of war pass away. 

Because, without the law of sowing and reaping, without the law that 
every living vegetable, fruit tree, or living soul, or living principle “hath its 
seed in itself,” there could be no earth or heaven, but only a hell of disorder 
a;id chaos and anarchy,—an abysm over whose bottomless pit bosom no sun, 
or moon, or even star would ever shine. 

Without the law of cause and consequent effects the whole world would 
be again “without form and void” and darkness would brood over all of its 
face. If the words of Him whose words never pass away are true, shall not 
these rulers who sow to violence reap violence; and reap this violence, not 
at the hands of righteous men, but at the hands of the wicked, for is it not 
written that “wickedness proceedeth from the wicked, but mine hand shall 
not be upon thee?” For, as it is further written, the Lord does not use the 
righteous to execute vengeance, lest the righteous hurt themselves, but the 
wicked punish the wicked, as it is written, “Deliver me from the wicked which 
is thy sword.” 

On the principle of reapers and sowers treading on each other’s heels, 
the Lord used the crafty and violent Assyrian to teach lessons of righteous 
chastisement to the men who sow to violence. For it is written by the 
prophet Isaiah, “O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their 
hand is mine indignation.” He uses the dog to bite the dog—like for like— 
on the principle that every seed brings forth its kind. The thousands of years 
of sowing to violence have only resulted in more violence, as sowing to the 
wind the whirlwind is reaped. 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


190 


After thousands of years of beating plowshares into swords by the rulers 
of the earth, the only result has been to add 'the assassin’s stiletto to the 
sword family. After the failure, not only in all ages, but in every instance, 
of the law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”—life for life— 
violence as a cure for violence—after the utter and everlasting and inevitable 
failure of “overcoming evil with evil,” the Prince of Peace comes and says to 
the nations of the earth, “Put up the sword; for all they that take up the 
sword shall by the sword perish.” 

And seemingly to enforce the truth of this law of the kingdom of peace 
and righteousness, and to show that there can be no exceptions to its penalties 
being visited upon the violators of it, He has permitted the assassination of 
one of the best rulers of the earth—a ruler who had violated its “letter and 
spirit” with perhaps as great a provocation as could possibly be. Seemingly, 
the life of the nation itself was at stake. Seemingly, the overthrow of the 
most haughty and dominating supremacy of a great slave-holding aristocracy 
was imperatively demanded. These things we all admit. But there may be 
some grounds for the belief by a Christian citizen that the way in which the 
temporary life of the nation has been temporarily saved will not be perma¬ 
nent,—that it was not in accordance with the laws of the Prince of Peace, 
and hence that other wars will spring out of and be justified by this one, 
and that these other wars will be as the whirlwind of a French Revolution to 
the wind of this great civil war, more violent and of more destructive sweep 
than any civil war has ever been. If the Word of God fails not, I believe 
such will be the case. 

There is a way to save the life of a republic without sacrificing the liyes 
of the citizens in the effort to pin it together with bayonets in civil war or 
by cementing its walls with blood. Bayonets and blood will inevitably pro¬ 
duce a demand ultimately for more bayonets and blood. How this must come 
God only knows, but that it will inevitably come is as certain as that like 
reaping follows like sowing. This will come unless men repent and cease 
from the evil of war. And the slaying of such a man as Lincoln under such 
circumstances is certainly sufficient to demonstrate to all considerate men 
that the end of war is worse than vanity, so far as the fate of rulers is con¬ 
cerned. Perhaps all history has never presented such an object lesson for 
showing the utter vanity of war, the utter wickedness of war, as the assassina¬ 
tion of such a ruler as Abraham Lincoln. It takes great things to teach great 
lessons. 

Seemingly the setting free of millions of slaves by violence would result 
in good to all concerned. But to pull the best of fruit before it is ripe, even 
to separate the tares from the wheat before the proper season, is not God’s 
way; and any violation of God’s law will meet with just recompense of re¬ 
ward on the principle that if one sows to wrong he shall of his wrong sow¬ 
ing reap wrong. The coming years will inevitably demonstrate this. Mr. 
Lincoln himself was the early disciple and apostle of getting rid of slavery 
in the just and honorable and peaceable way of gradual emancipation coupled 
with compensation to owners and the colonization under their own vine and 


JOHN GIVING UP COUNTRY AND KINDRED. 


191 


fig tree of the freedmen. But he permitted himself to be used by men of 
violence who believed in overcoming the evil of slavery with the evil of war. 
Perhaps at the close of this century the sad mistake of the nation in deserting 
the doctrine of gradual emancipation, as proclaimed in the early days of the 
Republic by Jefferson and in later days by Clay, Lincoln, and their Whig 
compatriots, will be discerned. 

If the freeing of slaves by violence will, in the coming generation, teach 
men the error of sowing to violence with the expectation of reaping peace, 
and if, in that coming generation there be nation of white men enslaved by a 
moneyed plutocracy, as Lincoln said would be the case, these white slaves 
and their apostles be taught the folly of resorting to violence and war as a 
way of recovering their industrial freedom,—then will the sacrifice of such 
a man as Lincoln not be in vain. 

But, asks one, why is it that, as a general thing, the best of rulers, like 
Lincoln, become victims? The reason of this is manifest from the following 
things: * 

In Mark the Master said, “How can Satan cast out Satan? And if 
Satan rise up against himself and be divided he cannot stand, but hath an. 
end.” Evil combats good and not its own. As a general thing it is well 
known that the most violent men on either side of this war- had very little 
affection for Lincoln. The Jefferson Davises on the one side and the Thaddeus 
Stevenses on the other denounced him bitterly. Hence the evil of the evil 
were more antagonistic to Mr. Lincoln than they were to each other. This 
is seen in the fate of the best men in the combats of duelists,—the Burrs 
always kill the Hamiltons. Let an amiable country lad accompany a city 
tough into the precincts of such places as gambling hells and brothels. The 
inevitable result is that the city tough, being on his own exclusive ground 
and altogether among his own kind, escapes unhurt, while the country lad 
generally gets a black eye if not worse. Beelzebub does not often strike his 
own. 

The great mistake that well intentioned good men make is to suffer them- 
selves to yield in some jot or tittle to the demands of evil men, or to enter 
even if it is only the outer chambers of the House of Evil. Had all the law- 
and-order men of the South opposed the fire-eaters of their section, instead 
of defying and worshiping them, and had all the genuine anti-slavery men 
of the North who were anti-slavery from a real Christian standpoint, stead¬ 
fastly resisted the violence of John Brown, there would have been no war, 
no Wilkes Booths, no assassination of such a man as Abraham Lincoln. The 
first led to the second, and the second to the third. And things will continue 
in such seed time and harvest as long “as the earth endures,” yea, as long 
as God’s words stand, because the earth may pass away, but the Word of 
God will never fail. 

It has been asked, Why are so many Poles assassins of rulers? The 
answer is simple, and is in keeping with the law of sowing and reaping 
what is sowed. At one time Poland was one of the most glorious of the 
European nations. Its political firmament was brilliant with constellations 


192 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


of poets and painters, scholars and statesmen, brave men and exceedingly 
fair women. Even our own country, in naming towns and cities and counties 
innumerable after Polish patriots has glorified Poland. But three most sensual 
and selfish rulers of three most sensual and selfish nations of the whole 
world with violence sowed to a violence that dismembered Poland, even as a 
lamb is torn limb from limb by wild beasts of prey. This violence, this sow¬ 
ing to war, has caused Poland to disappear as a star out of the heaven of 
nations, and to glare fitfully as an ignis fatnus in the dark gulf of the 
national hells. Its men no longer spend their strength in building the walls 
and beautifying the highways of their country, but in gnashing their teeth on 
the despoilers of their national temples. Its mothers are but Rachels weeping 
for children that come no more at their call, come no more as the sons of 
free fathers, come no more to places of political sovereignty. 

The sword and the bullet have been sown in the hot, fruitful soil of the 
Polish bosom, and the result has been the awful whirlwind of hatred of and 
revenge against the rulers of nations that have despoiled them. However 
lamentable this is it is but human nature, the very nature of you and me, 
and all of us, my brethren and sisters, unless indeed we be Christians in 
whom there is no guile of the old Adam left. Because it is manifest that, if 
any of us were some day sitting in our home, enjoying its sweets and felici¬ 
tating ourselves upon the possession of that beatitude of loving everybody 
and everything, even loving our enemies, we should soon be cast down from this 
beatitude of life if some one stronger than we should invade our home and 
kill our sons, insult our wives and daughters, destroy our property, and drive 
us away. This kind of sowing of this kind of seed would put us, not only 
in the spirit, but in the endeavor to use like violence and vengeance on those 
who despoiled us. Who of us, under such sowing, would not be tempted to 
make an effort to have the sower reap even a whirlwind of shot and shell ? 

All of us would be tempted unless we were followers of the Prince of 
Peace to that degree of grace that would lead us to trust to the power of 
that love which leads to the turning of one cheek when smitten on the other. 
Only Christians in spirit, as well as in name, have this love, and have such 
faith in its finally “overcoming all things” as to practice it. Unless we can 
do this we have no ground for saying Booth is a sinner any more than the 
average human nature is. This is taught by the Master in the Scripture which 
tells that those on whom the tower of Siloam fell, and those whose blood 
Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, are not sinners beyond what all of us 
under like temptation may be. “All will likewise perish.” 

Lincoln was not killed by order of the Lord. The Lord never orders any 
evil, but permits it, just as He permits thistles to bring forth thistles, just 
as he permits whatever is sowed to be reaped, unless the sower repents of 
his sowing and does all he can to pull up the tares or allay the wind to 
which he has sown. The rulers of the earth must cease sowing to bullets 
or they will reap bullets. You or I would not, we think, volunteer as in¬ 
struments of vengeance to assassinate a ruler. If we did so, this would at 


JOHN GIVING UP COUNTRY AND KINDRED. 193 

once classify us among “the wicked,” for only the wicked exercise vengeance— 
like producing like—everything having its own seed in its own self, as de¬ 
clared in the first book of God’s revealed laws to man. 

Yet, however much we may lament the reaping of bullets of the wicked 
by those who sow to bullets, our weeping is unavailing. In such cases the 
part of wisdom dictates to us that we learn and teach to others the great 
lesson that so great a crime as the assassination of the president gives to 
us. And that lesson is, that after seeing such a horrible outcome of war as 
that which overwhelms us to-day, we should by all means possible exhort 
those in authority to settle everything by laws laid down by the Prince of 
Peace, instead of resorting to the hellish codes of the duelist and the mili¬ 
tarist, who are but disciples and ministers of Mars, the God of War. 

These thoughts are submitted by one who is not called to preach the doc¬ 
trines of men who command that plowshares be beaten into swords; but to 
preach the doctrine of the prophet of God, who exhorts that “swords be 
beaten into plowshares”. The difference between the two is as the difference 
between the East and West. When one says, “Take up the sword and live 
forever,” and the other says, “Put up the sword, for all they that take up 
the sword shall by the sword perish,” unto which shall we hearken? 

And if, in pursuance of the truth announced by him who is the Truth 
itself, one, however great, should reap what he has sowed, shall we spend 
our time in shrieking like a set of Soudanese dervishes, or spend our strength 
as prophets of God in warning men of the dangers of sowing to the sword, 
lest of the sword they reap death and not life? 

Shall we preach wrath which destroys others and finally consumes its 
own votaries, and which, instead of overcoming anything whatever, is itself 
finally overcome by a greater evil, even as assassination is, perhaps, a greater 
evil than open war, as assassination is but the whirlwind of a wind that has 
been somewhere sown by the military man who kills by “a law that the 
wicked, through iniquity, have framed into statute?” Or shall we, as min¬ 
isters of the grace of Jesus the Lord, preach that Christian charity which is, 
if God’s Word be true, the only power whose steps never falter and whose 
hope never sickens, and whose strength never fails until “all things be over¬ 
come,” so that all the kingdoms of this world, including that of Mars, shall 
become the kingdoms of Him who is to conquer by love and not by brute 
force. 

I exhort you to these things, my countrymen, as one who, on one hand, 
distrusts the ways of Mars, the prince of the power of darkness, and, on the 
other hand, so trusts the Prince of Peace that he prays daily that His will 
be done on earth by men as it is done gladly by the angels in heaven. If 
we have discernment enough to see any reasonable proposition at all, it will 
appear to us as self-evident that the teacher and practitioner of militarism 
in his sowing to swords and rapid-fire guns, creates the anarchist with his 
secreted stiletto in place of a sword, and his rapid-fire pistol slyly up against 
the very walls of the lieart, instead of a park of artillery over against the 
walled city. Is not the occasion of seeing that evil cannot be overcome 


194 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


♦ 


with evil, but only produces a bottomless pit of crimination and recrimina¬ 
tion,—is not such an occasion a meet time for trying to overcome evil with 
good, to cease from worshiping Mars and begin to worship and follow the 
advice of the Prince of Peace, and try to make the fruit good by first making 
the tree good? 

It goes without saying that blubbering like orphan children will not 
bring about any remedy. Neither will shrieking like dervishes bring any 
balm to heal the wounds; neither will such blasphemies as are appropriate 
to be made to Mars to unload his bull dogs of war, in any wise affect the 
Prince of Peace in His great heart love for those whom He came into the 
world, not to kill, but to save. Salvation, and not damnation, is what is 
needed. Damnation comes from believing in war, in the sword, in vengeance, 
and in the effort to overcome one evil with a greater evil. Salvation comes 
by such means as are preached by the Prince of Peace. Among these the 
rulers of the earth must learn to “put up the sword,” must seek the earliest 
opportunity for the complete disarmament of the millions of men whose only 
education ajid occupation is to kill one another. 

With all the nations of the earth, from generation to generation for thou¬ 
sands and thousands of yeafs, sowing to brimstone, and bayonets, and bombs, 
and bullets, and blood, how can we expect not to witness such horrible occur¬ 
rences as that which to-day we are called upon to mourn? If it were not 
for the merciful provision that some seed fall by the wayside, and some in 
stony places, and some are caught up by the birds of the air—if it were not 
for such provision of Providence—from this continued and everlasting sow¬ 
ing by the nations of the seeds of violence, the earth itself would soon be¬ 
come a veritable hell where Cains would so abohnd that no man’s life would 
be safe, even in the house of his brother. May the God of nations give in¬ 
telligence and courage of heart, at least to all Christian ministers, to speak 
the truth in all candor and directness, even though such speaking should 
again sound as blasphemy to those scribes and pharisees who hearken unto 
their own worldly traditions, instead of obeying the truth as proclaimed by 
the Prince of Peace. 

Woe, woe unto the people who expect evil to be overcome with evil, who 
expect that they can sow to violence and reap peace. Such ever have met 
and ever will meet the sad and sickening discomfiture which besets us 
all to-day. 

Let us then learn the great lesson, not of crying for vengeance, not of 
lamenting with an) unavailing wail, not even calling upon a God who certainly 
is, like the God of the prophets of Baal, on a journey or asleep to those who 
call amiss and who only “cry louder” until they are totally destroyed, but 
let us learn the great lesson that so great a crime teaches us, if we expect 
killings of this kind to cease, that the rulers of the earth must “put up their 
swords,” that our political smithies must beat swords into plowshares, and 
all of our teachers must teach the nations “to learn war no more.” 

This, I deem the fittest occasion that has occurred during this century 
to teach such a lesson; for the mind of the whole world is now “at attention.” 






JOHN GIVING UP COUNTRY AND KINDRED. 


195 


Now, even though one has read of the effect of taking a golden 
censer of fire off of the altar of truth and casting it into the bosom 
of an earthly church, as portrayed in the eighth chapter of the Apo¬ 
calypse, he can well imagine the effect of this address that John felt 
called upon to deliver to a ‘’Northern Methodist Church” on the 
occasion of the assassination of the president. 

Notwithstanding John’s utterances were based upon and built 
up of great stones quarried in the quarries of all the hill countries of 
wisdom,—great truths gathered from the Law and the Gospel, from 
Psalmist and Prophet, from the Epistles and the Apocalypse, and 
from the very exact words of the Prince of Peace Himself,—yet 
there was scarcely a person in the great audience who heartily re¬ 
sponded to his declarations, save his wife and that large class of 
publicans and sinners that the Judge of all the earth said would 
go into the kingdom of heaven before the “holier than thou” set. 
We must also except the angels who ever had charge of John, as 
his mother had prayed. These without controversy approved his 
Christian utterances. But the church scribes and elders sought oc¬ 
casion to “accuse him.” 

Sufficient for this history to say that very soon it was found 
desirable by those in church authority that John be requested to 
consent, “for the good of the church,” to preach to other congrega¬ 
tions than the one among which his trumpet call to duty had caused 
to fall a star called “wormwood.” So, after some of the same kind 
of labors in barren and wilderness places, so far as the scribes and 
elders of the church were concerned, John for the first time attended 
an annual conference of the Northern Methodist elders and rulers, 
the results of which will be seen in our next chapter. 

Even after thirty-seven years, when another war president had 
reaped of the fearful sowing of war seed, and after John had, for 
all that time, more and more studied the doctrines of the Prince of 
Peace as opposed to the doctrines of Mars, and was able more force¬ 
fully to proclaim them, he had but little success in far off Texas 
in convincing the disciples of Mars of the error of their way al¬ 
though such disciples were not partisans of the slain president, as 
were those at Louisiana, Mo., in April, 1865. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


IN “NORTHERN” METHODIST CONFERENCE. 


The Difference Between One and Legion—John Getting Into Deep 
Water—An Elder Tells John’s Wife That John Is Missing His Chance 
For “Church Promotion”—The Philosophical Advice of His Wife—The 
Prediction of Brother McNal Begins to Materialize—The “Lambs” 
Hanker For Church Property Not Their Own—John and an Elder Go 
Up Against Each Other—The Elder Uses the “Letter” to Justify Rob¬ 
bery and Killing, While John Preaches the “Spirit” that Explains “Hard 
Sayings.” 


Up to this date John had come into personal fellowship with 
only a few of the elders of the church; but now he was to come in 
contact with a whole conference or assembly whose name was 
“Legion.” The sphere of one man is a mere spark as compared 
with the flame and heat of a furnace in which many separate sparks 
are fagoted in one flame. In the secret bosom of the Iowa preacher 
whom John and his father had rescued from the Border Ruffian 
Regulators of 1856, there may have been, and doubtless was, the 
hidden leaven of things that flamed out when all the members of 
his church were in the saddle of power and counseling what they 
could, would, and should do. In one respect John was wading 
deeper and deeper into troubled waters, such as those described by 
Ezekiel when the water first rose to the ankles, then to the knees, 
then to the loins, then became a veritable river of waters to swim 
in, but “could not be passed over,’’--only John’s deep waters did 
not “issue out from under the threshold of the house eastward and 
come down from the right side of the house.” They were like the 
waters spoken of in Revelation that the dragonistic serpent “cast 
out of his mouth as a flood after the woman, that he might cause 
her to be carried away of the flood; because the dragon was wroth 
with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her 
seed which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony 
of Jesus Christ.” • 

( 196 ) 





IN NORTHERN METHODIST CONFERENCE. 


197 


The following conversation that took place between John and 
his wife just before his departure for the conference, will illustrate 
the situation: 

“Papa,” said his wife, for just as soon as the married life of 
John and his wife was blessed with children, she always identified 
herself as being one with the children, and after that always called 
her husband “papa,” and John, along with the’ children, called her 
“mamma,”—“papa, from what the presiding elder said to me on his 
last quarterly round, I am satisfied that you are going to have 
trouble at the conference.” 

“Why, mamma,” queried John, “what did the elder say?” 

“In the first place,” said his wife, “in speaking of your memo¬ 
rial address on the occasion of the assassination of President Lincoln 
he said that he was not only pained at the sentiments you had ut¬ 
tered, but greatly regretted that you, who had such a good show for 
promotion in church circles, should shatter all chance of it. He even 
intimated that, if you would keep in line with the elders, you might 
one day be a bishop.” 

“What in the world, darling, did you say to him?” asked John. 

“Why, I told him that you cared nothing for ‘church promo¬ 
tion,’ that you understood that the Head of the Church, who is 
Jesus, the Christ, expressly forbade this ‘church promotion’ idea 
when he said to His disciples, as stated in the Gospel of Matthew, 
that it was only the scribes, and pharisees that ‘strove’ to get into 
Moses’ seat and loved the uppermost rooms at feasts and chief seats 
in the synagogues, and to be called Rabbi, Rabbi.” 

“What did the elder say to that?” asked John. 

“Why, he said that such an ideal state of affairs might do to 
preach, but that, even a preacher who practiced it would find him¬ 
self catching fish to raise revenue tp pay his taxes. He said that 
there were some things in the Bible that were merely idealistic, and 
were never intended to be practiced by men while in the flesh; and 
if they attempted such practice that they would soon find them¬ 
selves worse than a fox hunting for some hole in the ground to hide 
his nakedness from the inclemency of the weather.” 

“Well,” said John, “the elder seemed to have some scripture to 
back him up in liis assertion.” 

v “Yes, yes,” replied Clara, “I told him that he had some scrip¬ 
ture to justify his statement; but that his scripture would condemn 
his own church, which he admitted would let a minister who preached 
and followed Christ be without promotion, without money, and 


i 


198 JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 

without a home, and that such admission would place his church in 
exactly the same relation to true Christianity in these days of the 
second coming of the Son of Man as were the Jews in the days of 
His first coming. I then told him of what the newspaper reporter 
had said to you,—that you would find in the so-called ‘orthodox' 
church field about the same things that Christ found among the 
Jews, the rulers having uppermost seats, etc. And I told him that, 
if what he said was true, your newspaper friend was correct in tell¬ 
ing you that he had no doubt that you would find the existing 
church plane of life about the same as that described in the Book 
of Revelation, which shows the state of the church on earth as being 
pretty bad just about the time of the second coming.” 

“Well,” said John, “what did the elder say to that?” 

“He changed the subject,” replied the wife, “and told me to 
tell you not to spoil all of your chances in the conference by being an 
impracticable. I asked if he thought that it was impracticable, at 
least, to preach Christ, if' not to follow him. To this he replied 
that the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is altogether too weak to 
substitute the balloon sentiments preached by the Prince of Peace 
in His Sermon on the Mount for the every-day iron-clad doctrines 
of an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth law. I told him that 
you had denied the assertion of the reporter that you would find 
such sentiments as his entertained in the Methodist ministry; but 
I feared you would be forced against your will to concur with the 
opinion of your friend, that the ‘orthodox’ churches had ‘fallen, 
fallen’ from the grace of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, and had 
become as the Jews in the days of His first coming. The truth is, 
papa, though I didn’t say anything at the time, your old University 
newspaper friend was suggesting what Christ Himself, in Matthew 
and the Book of Revelation, predicted, that the church plane would 
be about as badly demoralized in the time of His second coming as 
it was in the days of His first coming. Though I did not say any¬ 
thing, yet by instant perception I saw that there was a good deal of 
truth in what your friend said. But we must wait. We must see 
for ourselves. We must bear our burden, and as you say the 
prophet declared, ‘To know we must follow on to- know.’ So, you 
go on to conference and see what you do see for yourself; because, 
you know, we both agreed that nothing should be forced on the 
belief of people,—that every one must see for himself.” 

“Well, well, well,” said John. 


IN NORTHERN METHODIST CONFERENCE. 


199 


His wife laughingly kissed him, and said: 

“I know, papa, that you mean by saying, ‘well, well, well,’ that 
all is not well, but you want everything to be well; and if the Bible 
is right, every good hunger and thirst will be satisfied. Just let 
us do the best we can, and all will come out right. At least, we 
have all eternity for learning a little here and a little there, before 
we can even think of the high estate of the ‘know-it-all’ kind of 
people. Now, I am as happy with the babe as a mother can be; and 
if I, the ‘weaker’ vessel, can stand still and see the salvation of the 
Lord, certainly you can be happy in ‘going forward’ to see what 
you shall see, because you know the war books lay it down as a rule 
that it is harder on those who stand still and receive a charge than 
it is on those who make the charge,—that inaction is more depress¬ 
ing than action. So, if I am happy, you can just leave off your ‘well, 
well!’ and go to conference and meet the sons of Anak or the sons 
of God as the case may be.” 

So John, with the words of his wife ringing in his ear, and 
the prophecies of his newspaper friend thundering in his mind, and 
the oft-repeated charge of his father “to have the courage of his 
convictions” strengthening his life, and the dying prayer of his 
mother that the “angels take and keep charge of him” hovering over 
him like a benison, went off to the conference of the elders. 

On the journey, which was by rail, the cars contained many 
members en route to the conference. Here and there could be heard 
a song, not of the Zion of the Lord, but of the Northern Methodist 
Zion: 

We’ll hang Jeff Davis 
On a sour apple tree,— 
ending with the chorus: 

For John Brown’s Spirit goes marching on. 

John discovered that the most of the talk was about two sub¬ 
jects . One was the passage of the Drake Constitution, which de¬ 
barred from preaching every preacher that had had or expected to 
have any sympathy with the Southern people in their struggle. 
Another was the question, How can we keep what we have got of 
the Southern Methodist Church property and get the balance of it? 
The predominant sentiment seemed to be that “we’ve already ex¬ 
panded and taken in a good deal of the enemy’s stuff; but for 
Christ’s sake we must take it all,” as the children of Abraham took 
in the heathen, in a kind of ram, lamb, sheep, and mutton complete¬ 


ness. 


200 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


John called to mind old Brother McNal’s statement, made on 
the occasion of the visit of the Iowa brother to the old parsonage 
in the days when the Southern Methodists were lions and the North¬ 
ern Methodists were playing the part of lambs. John felt lonesome, 
and perhaps looked more so. He told his wife afterward of how 
often he said to himself on that trip, “Well, well, well.” He 
reflected that even lambs should daily supplicate that part 
of the Lord’s Prayer which urges, “Lead us not into temptation,” 
especially that terrible temptation that inevitably comes upon mere 
ecclesiastical “lambs” to act the part of the “lion” when power and 
pride overtake them. From what is about to be related, it will be 
seen that even Em’s father, as far off of balance as he was in action 
when a “lion,” yet had some idea of how his Northern Methodist 
brother would act when the doves of “lambhood’ 5 should be sup¬ 
planted by the eagles of “lionhood.” 

The scene selected is at a Northern Methodist Conference which 
met in Missouri in the sixties when the lions of the fifties had been 
supplanted by the “lambs” which had been led dumb before their 
shearers in those fifties. 

A resolution had been before the conference paving the way 
for the Northern branch of the Methodist Church to come into pos¬ 
session and ownership, without pay, of the church property of the 
Southern branch. There was also much private talk on this sub¬ 
ject. The whole sphere of the conference seemed to be pollenized 
with the idea of getting possession of their neighbor’s little prop¬ 
erty. Sermons and prayers and exhortations and talks, yea, the very 
atmosphere of the exterior body, as well as the auras of the interior 
soul of the conference, were filled and aromatic with the odor of 
lustful covetousness for Southern Methodist churches and parson¬ 
ages. 

John listened to these things with a heavy heart, and, on the 
night succeeding the day’s discussion of the “needful righteousness 
of possessing themselves” of the “enemy’s stuff,” he had the fol¬ 
lowing conversation with one of the leading presiding elders of the 
conference: 

“I hardly know, Brother Schufellow,” said John, “when’I have 
been so surprised and so pained as I have been at this conference in 
’istening to the talk and speeches advocating the taking of the 
church property of the Southern Methodists.” 


IN NORTHERN METHODIST CONFERENCE. 


201 


“Well, well,” replied the elder, “I see nothing for a loyal citi¬ 
zen to be either surprised or pained at in the efforts of a loyal 
church to overthrow a disloyal one root and* branch, and, like the 
Israelites among the heathen, take all of their cattle, all of their stuff, 
and their wives and children, if need be. The children of Israel 
did this; and why can’t we, in war time especially, practice the same 
thing? In fact, in the teaching of the wars of Israel in extermin¬ 
ating the heathen enemy, we are justified not only in taking their 
stuff, but in killing outright the whole rebel outfit of men, women, 
and children; and I am inclined to be pained, not at our efforts to 
get their stuff, but because we as a conference do not demand of the 
government the raising of the black flag and inaugurating a war of 
extermination of men, women, and children. Didn’t David, as re¬ 
lated in the Second Book of Samuel, fight against the children of 
Ammon, and take, not only the gold, but “did bring forth the spoils 
of the city in great abundance;” and not only took the spoils, but 
put all the men, women, and children ‘under saws and under har¬ 
rows of iron and under axes of iron,’ and beheaded the whole wicked 
outfit of the cities of Ammon ?” 

The elder seemed to be obsessed of an all-consuming spirit of 
vengeance and extermination, and frantically repeated with the 
hoarse and coarse bellow of a bull of Bashan (with head down to the 
earth, and tail up to the heavens sacrilege) some dozen in¬ 
stances where the Israelites, “in whom there was no guile,” had, 
under direction of God and Moses and other chosen leaders, not 
only taken all the cattle and other stuff of the enemy, but had killed 
all the men, women, and children. In fact, the elder was so vehe¬ 
ment and violent that John might have feared personal harm had 
he not been free from fear when he knew that he was right and 
that “the angels had him in charge.” 

In the mean time a large crowd of preachers had gathered, and, 
at some of Brother Schufellow’s quotations of getting the stuff of 
the enemy, there were such responses as “Amen,” “Bless the Lord,” 
and even at his perversion of Scripture, justifying killing of men, 
women, and children, some of the preachers actually shouted out: 

“Praise such a God!” “Let us all enlist under the banners of 
such a Captain!” 

To be honest, it must be written that, had John given way to 
the feeling of indignation that was aroused in his whole nature by 
such awful perversions of Scripture, justifying such awful barbar- 


202 


JOHN COUNSELLOR^ EVOLUTION. 


ism and demonism, he would again have taken his letter out of the 
church, at least long enough to say: 

‘'You d—n pig-headed zealots! You have all the zeal of a 
hyena—made after the image and likeness of a beast—without 
one single element of the knowledge of. a man made after the image 
and likeness of God.” 

But John had learned not to answer a fool according to his 
folly, though he had not learned the unprofitableness of casting 
pearls before swine; hence he proceeded to cast the following pearl 
of truth before this same herd of ecclesiastical literalists, who were 
as utterly void of the “spirit that maketh alive” as they were full of 
the “letter that killeth.” Said John: 

“Since the death of my mother I have been reading my Bible 
for myself, and have ceased to sit like a devout Catholic while the 
clergy read and interpret to me the truths of that precious Book. 
I have quit appealing to the traditions of the elders, which make all 
the original commandments of God utterly void, even as an elder 
here on this occasion has made utterly void the original command¬ 
ment, “Thou shalt not kill,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” by pervert¬ 
ing the Scripture into a justification of killing and stealing with 
all the zeal of a medieval advocate of the Inquisition. 

“Now, appealing directly to the Scripture, I say that in a thou¬ 
sand places and in a thousand ways the Bible declares that ‘the Scrip¬ 
tures must be spiritually discerned/ that the ‘letter kills, but the spirit 
makes alive, that my words are spirit/ that man may sin against the 
letter, but that a sin against the spirit is utterly unforgivable, because 
the letter is the garment, while the spirit is the very life. 

“Now, applying these indisputable truths to what is stated in 
the Old Testament about exterminating men, women, and children, 
and taking their stuff, it will be readily seen that, if this is done 
literally, it will make murderous barbarians of us all. Yea, it will 
make bloody demons of men. If taken literally, every civilized in¬ 
stinct of the ordinary civilized man is killed, every brotherly im¬ 
pulse that characterizes Christians on earth and angels in heaven 
is ‘killed/ and the whole thing ends in a potpourri of desolation 
and damnation and death. Yea, verily, the ‘letter kills/ but when 
we ‘spiritually discern’ these Old Testament Scriptures, and learn 
that the command to exterminate our enemies is spoken in reference 
to the enemies that are of and in ‘our own household/ the enemies 
which are found in our hearts, such as hatred and envy and jealousy 
and covetousness and vengeance and lust, and that the extermination 


IN NORTHERN METHODIST CONFERENCE. 


203 


of these enemies by any and all means possible is the extermination 
spoken of in the Scriptures, then we can see the necessity and the 
beauty of ‘holy wars’ that wholly exterminate our evils. 

“By appeal to the bare letter there is scarcely a sin or a crime , 
known in all the curriculum of criminology that it not justified; but 
when these same sayings, that seemingly command and justify the 
commission of crime, are ‘spiritually discerned’—that is, are viewed 
in the light of what they are intended to teach spiritually—these 
scriptures all are found to be most beautiful and in keeping with 
every saying of the Wonderful Counselor, the Everlasting'Father, 
the Prince of Peace. 

“For instance, I will ask the warrior exterminating elder to 
give us this interpretation of the following scripture, to be found 
in one hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm: ‘O daughter of Babylon, 
who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be that dasheth thy little 
ones against the stones.’ ” 

To this the elder replied: “This is one of the scriptures that I 
rely on for justification of my advocacy of exterminating root and 
branch those in rebellion. People get so wicked that they have to 
be exterminated.” 

“For argument’s sake,” said John, “let us admit that people get 
so wicked that they have to be exterminated. Yet, for the work of 
extermination, for the execution of vengeance that would take little 
children up by the heels and dash their brains out on a stone, would 
a good man be made happy in such a bloody and cruel work? No, 
sir, none but a devil would be happy in such work. Hence tfie Lord, 
in manifold places in the Bible, exhorts the righteous man not to 
put forth his hands to execute vengeance. Why? Because devils 
are used to punish devils. Such work would hurt any good man. 
You know that if any of you were compelled to take little children 
up by the heels and da'sh their brains out against rocks, you would 
feel imbruted and would be badly hurt in your whole moral nature.” 

“Well,” replied the elder, “this scripture means something, and 
what do you say it means ?” 

“Certainly,” replied John, “this and all other Scripture means 
something—and means something that applies to each one of us— 
and something that each one of us will know the truth of if we ‘un¬ 
derstand and do’ the things which they spiritually teach. There 
is scarcely a text of Scripture from which I and every man who is 
passing through the great regeneration through which all must pass 


204 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


who follow Christ, have derived more happiness than from dashing 
the little ones of Babylon against the stones. In general terms 
Babylon, spiritually discerned or interpreted, means a corrupt, per¬ 
verted, lustful, self-aggrandizing state of the church or of life. The 
little ones of this Babylon are the thousand and one evils of heart 
and errors of mind which a corrupt and confused and selfish state 
of heart and mind bring forth. The ‘stones’ are predicated of ‘truth.’ 
There is not a place in the whole Bible where the term ‘stone’ or 
‘rock’ is used, but it is used to express some idea or perform some 
use that-on the spiritual plane belongs to the truth. Stones repre¬ 
sent truth. Let us take, as a sample, one of the ‘little ones’ of 
Babylon, one of the errors, one of the false teachings of Babylon, 
and see first how unhappy it has made us; and then see how, by 
dashing it against a stone—against the truth—the falsehood with 
all its attendant unhappiness disappears. How from believing a lie 
and being damned or damaged we are made ‘happy’ by bringing this 
lie up against the light of the truth that sets us free from error. 

“The Babylonish view of God is this, that he is wrathful, that 
he is full of vengeance, that he is moved by passions such as move 
corrupt men, that if it were not for costly and bloody sacrifices 
offered him he would doom us to hell, that he is always looking out 
for a chance to damn us forever, and would do so were it not for 
the continual intercessions of another. Such erroneous views of 
God fill us with fear. We flee from His presence. We are bur¬ 
dened and tormented, and vexed and worried, and find neither peace 
nor pleasantness in His presence. 

“But when we bring this ‘belief of a lie’—this Babylonish ‘little 
one’—up against the truth as it is in Christ and in all of the Scrip¬ 
ture, we are made exceedingly ‘happy’—yea, a million fold happier 
than we could ever be in hearkening unto Brother Schufellow’s ad¬ 
vice of murdering and robbing any portion of our fellow-kind who 
may differ from us. 

“Now take a great Scripture stone, the one great scriptural 
truth that ‘God is Love,’ that there is no hate, no vengeance, no evil, 
no ill-will in Him, that He is everlastingly merciful, that ‘His mercy 
endureth forever,’ that He is not only our Heavenly Father, but our 
^Everlasting Father,’ that He is not a loving Father to-day and a 
stern and angry executor of vengeance to-morrow, but He is with¬ 
out variableness or change—the same to-day, yesterday, and forever 
—that His love is like the sun that shines on good and evil alike, 


IN NORTHERN METHODIST CONFERENCE. 205 

that He has more tender and more enduring love and care for us 
than our mother can possibly have, that He is a Shepherd who does 
not sit down in repose in the fold whqp he has housed ninety-nine, 
but a Shepherd who does not rest, and cannot rest, and will not rest 
as long as there is one lost, one out on the mountains,—that if we 
are ever hurt, it is not this everlastingly loving Father that hurts 
us, but the hurt comes through the world, the flesh, or the devil,— 
that if woe comes it does not come from this ever-watchful Shepherd, 
but from ourselves. 

“Thus acquainting ourselves with God, thus bringing the Baby¬ 
lonish ‘little ones’ up against this great stone, we are made ‘happy/ 
yea, we find peace and pleasantness in His presence from which, 
when in a Babylonian state of ‘believing a lie,’ we were damned. We 
fear ourselves, but trust God; we see that the world and the flesh 
and the devil and our own selves are our enemies, and that God is 
our friend. 

“So every ‘little one’ of Babylon, every superstition, every be¬ 
lieving of every lie that damns, has its brain dashed out by being 
brought against the* ‘stones’—the truths of Holy Writ. Next to 
the love principle more is predicated of the truth principle than of 
any other element in the entire fullness of the Godhead. Love and 
truth—mercy and truth—are the heart and the head of God; and 
the Psalmist exclaims that ‘by reason of truth’ men ride prosperously 
on all high places of earth and heaven. 

“How much more in keeping with the character of an all-merci¬ 
ful and all-loving everlasting Heavenly Father, thus spiritually to 
discern and apply His sayings than to wrest them into the source 
of murder and theft and violence from which even the inferior order 
of devils stands back aghast. I suppose that our neighbor-despoil¬ 
ing elder who indulges in a literalism that ‘kills,’ in reading Exodus, 
would justify the literal things found therein, that is, the borrowing 
of jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment from neighbors 
and never returning them. How about this, my dear elder?” 

“I take the Bible for what it says,” replied the elder, “and if 
the Bible’ says that every Jewish woman and man, when leaving 
Egypt, should despoil the Egyptians by borrowing of them ‘silver 
and gold and raiment,’ they should do so, and we would be justified 
in doing the same thing. In fact, at every one of the quarterly con¬ 
ferences I have taken for a text the twenty-second verse of the third 
chapter of Exodus, which reads: ‘But every woman shall borrow 


206 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 

of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of 
silver and jewels of gold and raiment; and ye shall put them on your 
sons and upon your daughters, and ve shall spoil the Egyptians/ ” 
“If you preach such baVl-headed literalism as this," said John 
to the elder, “you would make Moses contradict himself; for he 
expressly said in Deuteronomy, ‘Thou shalt lend, but not borrow/ 
Then again, when Christ said, ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son 
of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you,’ your letter that 
killeth would make you either a cannibal or a Roman Catholic tran- 
substantiationist. But if you spiritually interpret the borrowing of 
silver/gold, and raiment of the Egyptians, you will find a beautiful 
lesson and one consistent with honesty and common sense. When 
we know that every natural thing on earth has something spiritual 
corresponding to it in the spiritual world, and that, inasmuch as 
God is a Spirit and His ‘words are spirit,' and that all the Bible is 
addressed to man as a spiritual being, and natural things are used 
merely to teach not natural but spiritual things, and seeing what 
Egypt, silver, gold, and raiment correspond to and represent spiritu¬ 
ally, then, and only then, we can get at the spiritual meaning and can 
begin to understand what is meant by the saying that without a 
parable Christ never spoke, also the expression in Galatians, ‘Which 
things are an allegory.' In fact, the inspiration of the Bible is found 
in this, that each and every word, each and every thing expressed in 
natural language by use of earthly things, has a spiritual meaning. 
And if this spiritual meaning is not ‘discerned’ we have a case of the 
‘letter that kills,' but if discerned spiritually/ we have a beautiful 
lesson consistent with all the character of God, and consistent with 
every part of Scripture, which makes all things alive, instead of a 
warrant for deception and dishonesty such as the elder’s literalism 
would compel us to approve. Egypt represents the state of the car¬ 
nal or unregenerate man, while Canaan represents the state of the 
regenerating or the regenerate man. Egypt represents a lower state 
of life as compared with Canaan, which represents a higher state. 
Silver represents things that appertain to our thoughts or mind; 
gold represents things that appertain to the affections, or heart life; 
while raiment represents the acts in which our thoughts "and affec¬ 
tions clothe themselves when we bring down the spiritual life in 
outward actual hearing of the will of God and doing this will on 
earth as it is done in heaven. For illustration, we hear the truth 
that men ought to deal fairlv with each other. This is silver, or a 
thing of the mind. Not only should men believe as a truth that 


IN NORTHERN METHODIST CONFERENCE. 


207 


they should act fairly with their neighbor, but they should ‘believe 
it in their hearts/ that is, should love so to act.. Now, a man be^ 
lieving that he ought to act fairly and loving in his very heart the 
idea of acting fairly, is very apt to carry the principle of fair acting 
into all of his dealings, and when he does so carry it into all the com¬ 
mon dealings of life, thus expressing the principle in acts as well 
as in thought and affection, he is clothing it with a garment. 

“Then when we apply this spiritual meaning to the words 
‘Egypt/ ‘silver/ ‘gold/ and ‘raiment/ we find this the lesson taught 
to the children of Israel who were about to go up out of Egypt into 
Canaan, out of a lower into a higher state of life, which really repre¬ 
sented a going up out of an earthly to a heavenly life. 

“In Egypt you have learned a good many good lessons. That 
is what you were placed in Egypt for. Now, take all of the true 
and good things that you have learned in Egypt along with you and 
teach them to your sons and daughters in the land which the Lord 
will give you, 

“This would be borrowing of your neighbor, as the Romans bor¬ 
rowed of the Greeks, ‘learning and arts and science/ which you see 
is praiseworthy. A youth growing up out of boyhood carries with 
him into manhood all of the true and good things he learned in his 
juvenile states. Thus manhood borrows of youth and never repays. 
Yes, you and I, in passing from earth to heaven, should carry with 
us the very truths and affections that we find on earth, bringing 
happiness to ourselves and our neighbors, because the men and 
women of the earth are to become the angels in the heavens, and 
when we become angels there are thousands of things which we have 
learned to do on earth which will be of great service to us even as 
angels; for ‘the children of this world are wiser in their genera¬ 
tion than the children of light/ The earthly John Smith is going 
to be John Smith still and not another, when he passes from earth 
to heaven; and a good deal of his happiness in heaven will depend 
on treasures of silver and gold—truths and affections—that he has 
laid up while on earth, and which his heavenly life will borrow from 
his earthly one. 

“So we see how ‘the spirit’ of this scripture ‘makes alive,’— 
‘makes alive’ with a beautiful lesson that gladdens our mind and 
rejoices our heart; while our elder’s letter ‘kills’ everything of glad¬ 
ness and joy by inculcating deception and dishonesty in borrowing 
with no intent to pay back,—a dishonesty which even the Discipline 
of the elder’s own church positively forbids. 


208 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“So also of all the elder's literalism in applying to us at this 
day the literal history of the Jews in their extermination of literal 
enemies, and thus justifying murder, robbery, and arson. It simply 
‘kills,’ and if we follow his advice we shall become, like the Jews, 
a generation of vipers in preference to whom even ‘publicans and 
harlots’ will be admitted into the kingdom of heaven.” 

Here an aged minister who, among all the congregations he had 
preached to, had been called “Brother John,” because, like John 
the Apostle, he had preached “love,”—love to God and love to each 
other,—as the only real Christian life, got happy and exclaimed with 
great fervor: 

“For the first time mine eye seeth what is meant by the saying 
that the Scriptures must be spiritually discerned. Oh, what a bur¬ 
den is lifted from my mind by seeing that the precious Word of my 
Heavenly Father is all love, all good will,—that even the hard say¬ 
ings that seemingly justify killing and robbery and deception, by be¬ 
ing spiritually discerned, are as rocks out of which come fountains 
of living water, are as barren places that, by spiritual discernment, 
are turned into living water-brooks and fruitful gardens.” And 
old Brother John wound up by thrice exclaiming: “ ‘Lord, now let- 
test thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eye hath seen thy sal¬ 
vation,’—salvation from everything that savors of theft, murder, ill- 
will, wrath, vengeance, that at times appear in the letter of the 
Word, but are as rocks turned to fountains by the spirit,—by Thy 
Spirit that makes them ‘alive’ with love.” 

We may add that the wrathful, warlike, vengeance-breathing 
Methodist elder was notorious for his denunciation of what he called 
the “Campbellites” taking the Scriptures literally in their much ado 
about water baptism; and John asked him if it was not equally fair 
to denounce him for taking things too literally as it was for him to 
denounce the “Campbellites” for placing a literal construction on 
Christian baptism by claiming that such baptism is fulfilled by physi¬ 
cal immersion in material waters. 

“How is it?” asked John, “that you preach the spirit and de¬ 
nounce the letter as to one part of the Scriptures, and as to the other 
parts you out-Herod the “Campbellite” Herod in preaching the letter 
that certainly is a thousand fold more killing of every Christian im¬ 
pulse than mere water baptism could possibly be ? Are you not per¬ 
haps guilty of plucking a mote out of your brother’s eye, while a very 
huge beam needs casting out of your own ?” 

To this the elder, with a sneer, replied: 


IN NORTHERN METHODIST CONFERENCE. 


209 


“I didn’t come to this conference to be led by such youngsters 
as you are. If the truth were known, it would doubtless appear 
that your loyalty to the government is about as bad as your theology. 
I even doubt whether you voted the Republican ticket at the last 
election.” 

“I can satisfy the elder,” said John, “by letting him know that 
I did not vote the Republican ticket at the last election, nor at any 
other election, and never expect to vote the ticket of any party that 
justifies war and has no higher way of settling disputes than that of 
the bully, the bulldozer, the murderer, and the man of mere brute 
power. 

“However, I do not conceive that the issue between you and 
myself, my dear elder, is one of voting party tickets; but the issue 
at hand is this: Shall we of this day be governed by the ‘letter 
that kills’ or by the ‘spirit that makes alive ?’ Shall we be most con¬ 
cerned about crucifying our political enemies, or about crucifying the 
‘foes’ of our own household,—the evils and errors of our own heart 
and mind? The issue is this: Shall the church be the church of 
the Prince of Peace or be the campus of Mars ? Under your teach¬ 
ing, in every war we shall find ‘the church’ so called taking the lead 
in whooping up the dogs of war, instead of proclaiming that ‘he 
that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword,’ ‘he that diggeth 
a pit for another shall fall himself into that self-same, pit/ ‘he that 
sheddeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed,’ ‘he that leadeth 
into captivity shall go into captivity,’—like producing like, as every 
seed produces after its kind in an unending seed-time and harvest, 
all of which is but overcoming evil with evil, ending inevitably in 
a bottomless pit. You must learn, my dear elder, the great truth ex¬ 
pressed by the inspired Psalmist that, not the good, but the ‘evil 
shall slay the wicked.’ Confess yourself to be an evil and adulterous 
church, then will you be commissioned to slay the wicked. I here 
make the prediction that, if the Methodist Church shall imbibe the 
teaching of this elder, and shall sit at the foot of this Gamaliel of 
Mars, in the next and in every war the Methodist ministry will be 
a mere bloody set of shrieking dervishes calling out for fire to come 
down from heaven to destroy,—praying for pillage and killing,— 
yea, praying for everything taught by Mars, and for nothing taught 
by the Prince of Peace. In fact, they will be about another set of 
high priests like unto those who shamelessly crucified the Prince of 
Peace and glorified in the act of murdering its enemies.” 

8 


210 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Sufficient to say that the “Conference of Elders/’ with a few 
exceptions, proceeded with the demand on the military to turn over 
to them their neighbors’ property without money and without price. 

Thus every ecclesiastical body, when it grows great in numbers 
and gets puffed up with pride and power, hastens on to its own final 
departure from all the original commandments of the meek and 
lowly Prince of Peace. As a matter of course the final wind up of 
any church that receives the mark of the Beast, and makes its mem¬ 
bers drink of the wine of wrath, will be that that church, like the 
Jews, like Babylon, shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God and 
be tormented with all the fires of lustful dominion, and smothered 
in the brimstone smoke of its dense spiritual stupidity and ignorance. 
The day of the judgment of such a campus of Mars is only a ques¬ 
tion of time. 

The next day, when the discussion was still going on, John sat 
in the audience and his mind reverted to scenes of the Border Ruffian 
days. In those days he saw the members of this church persecuted, 
and yet they preserved the saint-like submission of lambs dumb be¬ 
fore their shearers. But how different now! So different was it 
that John saw the utter impossibility of ever reconciling men who 
worship Mars with the patience of saints,—that the commandments 
of men lead to the worship of the Beast, while the commandments 
of God lead to the faith of Jesus. 

With an indignant mind and a sick heart John left this confer¬ 
ence never to return to the like of such again. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


LIST OF BETTERMENTS. 


John’s Arrival at Home and Reception by His Wife—The List of 
‘"Betters”—The Tactful Wife—At Least in One Thing the Prediction 
of the Editor Coming True—Found Mars Worshiped—The Balance of His 
Predictions Not Yet “Ruled Out”—The Doctrine of the “House of 
Many Mansions” Explained—The “Preferred Before Thou” Set—The 
“Fateful Boast of the Avenger”—The Miriam With Timbrel and Dance 
Makes the Wilderness Glad. 


John returned—not to his home, for he was beginning to feel 
that he was following in the footsteps of the Master who had no 
home,—but to the place where his wife was “boarding,” or rather 
was “keeping house” in rented apartments, which is a species of 
boarding, or staying under the vine and fig tree of another. 

His wife, with “the boy” in arms, met him at the gate with a 
smile and a kiss. He felt sad and weary, and actually laid his head 
on his wife’s bosom and—wept,—-not with the cry of a weakling, 
but that of a strong man, echoing the cry of the Saviour of the world 
mourning over its evils with heaviness of heart. Before John be¬ 
came a Christian, under such circumstances, he would have cursed 
in order to voice his feelings of wrath. Now his feelings of sorrow 
vented themselves. His wife said: 

“Why, papa, we have read that it is better to go to the house of 
mourning than to the house of feasting, and we may say that this 
day is this scripture fulfilled in our case. So let us try to see what 
the ‘better' consists of. Y’ou may count on two things as ‘better.’ 
The boy and myself are better than when you went away, and I love 
you better and better, and I have no doubt in the world that you will 
now quit your ‘Well, well, well!’ and get to saying, ‘Better, better, 
better!’ Certainly you will. Come into the house and see the little 
supper I have cooked all with my own hands for you, for our ‘as¬ 
sistant cook’ has gone off and got married.” 

( 211 ) 





212 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


After supper, as they sat beside a cozy old Missouri hickory- 
log fire, Clara and John took an invoice of things and things. John 
having told his wife of what had happened at conference, she said: 

“To tell you the truth, papa, when your old University friend, 
the newspaper reporter, was telling you that you would meet up with 
what you have, I felt certain that he was telling the truth. But I 
knew that it was better that we should see for ourselves.” This 
putting in the word “we” was a peculiarity of the now sainted wife, 
which always took away the sting of “You did it,” which so many 
wives and husbands cruelly practice on each other. And if only in 
this little tactful thing any one of John and Clara’s children learn 
a lesson, then is this history well missioned. 

“Well, yes,” said John, “we should be thankful that, while we 
saw the John Brown spirit hanging the Jeff Davis ghost, as our 
friend predicted, we did not find that, doctrinally, the church was as 
bad as predicted in denying the only one supreme Godship of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. The sinning along the line of John Brownism 
is bad" enough; but if we had found the church advocating the 
doctrine of three Gods, and the horrible conclusions that flow from 
such dividing up the Godhead into persons many and gods many, 
it would have been terrible indeed. And it would also have been 
sickening to have found that the church had lost sight of the minis¬ 
tration of angels as proclaimed by Christ and by all of the prophets, 
and maintained that a few earthly priests of like infirmities with 
ourselves were the only teachers we would ever have to open the 
book of truth—to separate the tares from the wheat in us, and to 
do those ten thousand things for us that the Bible says the angels 
will do. It is horrible to think of a church that maintains that the 
only chance we poor mortals have is to be led in the straight way 
by those as blind as ourselves,—the blind leading the blind. 

“And I did not hear a preacher preach the awful materialistic 
doctrine that the resurrection consisted of our old material bodies, 
after decay and worms have consumed them, on some day not known 
and in some way not known, being raised up and plastered back on 
to our spirits that have been in heaven for ages. The justifying of 
war by the letter of the Word is bad enough, but to have found the 
church indulging in those other horrible delusions of the Dark Ages 
would have been sickening indeed!” 

“Well, I’ll tell you papa,” said the wife, “the reason you didn’t 
hear such things preached is because just at present the preachers 


LIST OF BETTERMENTS. 


213 


are so full of war and ‘church extension’ and such earthly affairs 
that they are in the same condition as ‘Brother McNal,’ who, as you 
have said, told your mother that he was so busy with ‘committees of 
safety’ for extending slavery into Kansas that he ‘hadn’t thought 
much of late’ about the spiritual side of things, such as your mother’s 
premonition of going to live among the angels.” 

“Perhaps you are right, mamma. Had I staid longer I might 
have heard preached these horrible perversions of the Word of the 
living God to such an extent that I would have been forced to 
acknowledge that our old friend was in all things right, even to the 
extent that the church in this day of the Son of Man’s second coming, 
by its traditions, has made void all of the doctrines of true 
Christianity, even as the Jews did in the days of His first coming. 
At least, I am glad I didn’t stay to see this. So that is another 
thing to set down in our catalogue of things ‘better.’ ” 

Right here John was violating the scripture that says : “Let not 
him that buckleth on the armor boast himself as does he that pulleth 
it off.” 

The Methodist armor had been by heredity, by environment, 
and by the trend of circumstances “buckled” on to John. He thought 
that he had pulled it off when he left the Northern Methodist Con¬ 
ference, not only without a place to work, but with a determination 
not to work in its fields any more. But there were other branches 
of the Methodist ecclesiasticism that still had strong holds on John, 
and one that he would never have left had it not been for the advice 
of such of its own ministers as the Reverends Vandeventer and 
Godby, that there was no possible place in its work for such as John. 
In fact, when John left it it had already left him, as most of its 
“ministers” were chaplains, or captains, or commissaries in Con¬ 
federate camps, while John was left high and dry on the other side 
of the beach. But more of what he met with in the “Southern 
Methodist Church” hereafter. 

“Let us see,” said his wife, “if we can’t add another ‘better’ to 
our catalogue. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to 
a house of feasting such as you have just departed from. I think 
I can mention a second ‘better.’ It may be a ‘better’ that strikes a 
woman stronger than it does you men; but it has struck me all along 
since we have been in this church. I am not altogether sure that this 
‘better’ is altogether a Christian one, but it is a very reasonable and 
natural one, and is this: I don’t think we can ever feel as much 


214 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


at home with Northern people as we do with Southern people! 
However, not all people born in the North are of the peculiar com¬ 
mercial cast of character that differentiates them from the impulsive 
and generous and'childlike temperament that is a distinguishing fea¬ 
ture of Southern people. Sergeant S. Prentiss, though born in Maine, 
was of a distinctly Southern genius. So also, many people born in 
the South are cold and calculating. I think such are worse than 
what some think the Yankees “are. I only speak of people in the 
bulk. The bulk of Northern people are of the ‘calculatin’’ kind; 
while those of the South, as a class, are like children. I once heard 
a man say that ‘a good many Northern people are knaves, and a good 
many Southern people are fools.’ I think, however, that the man 
had things a little mixed. 

“Our old University newspaper friend, who had spent about 
one-half of his life south and one-half north of Mason and Dixon’s 
line, often used to say that the besetting sin of the Northern people 
was cool and calculating knavery, while the besetting sin of the 
Southern people was unmitigated childlike foolery. But he said 
there were many exceptions on both sides to this general rule; be¬ 
cause he had found here and there some of the most designing 
‘skinflints’ in the South, and some of the sunniest-hearted people in 
the North.” 

“Well,” said John, “I suspect that you are right, and that the 
Bible sustains you in. your views. ‘Can the leopard change his spots, 
and the Ethiopian his skin?’ Or, if this can be done, can the words 
of God change when He says that even in the heavens people are 
gathered together with their kindred,—with their own kind? We 
know that people are not happy except with their own kind; and 
the old Virginia people and the Connecticut people are not of the 
same kind. As a matter of course, the Northern people are as 
good as the Southern people. So is A’s wife as good to A as B’s 
wife is good to B. Yet A’s wife is better to A than she could be 
to B and B’s wife is better to him than she could or should be to 
A. I go so far as to believe that in the Heavenly Father’s great 
House of Many Mansions, in the heavenly country of many 
lands and divisions like Canaan, the negroes and the Indians 
and. the Dutch and the French and the English and. the Turk will 
each nation have his own vine and fig tree—his own particular part 
of the heavens—just as each has or ought to have his own country 
on earth. I could give hundreds of Scripture passages for this; 
but what I have said will add your ‘better’ to the list.” 


LIST OF BETTERMENTS. 


215 


'‘Now your time,” said Clara to John. “You think up— No, 
not mere ‘think up,’ but you see if you know another ‘better’ to add 
to our list.” 

“Since I have been mingling with Northern people,” said John, 
“one thing has always struck me very painfully. It is true that 
it is a thing that only the more vulgar and ignorant of Northern 
people indulge in, yet it is a fly in the apothecary’s ointment that 
makes a very unsavory smell. It is the holier-than-thou spirit 
which seems to pervade the minds of a good many of our Northern 
brothers. And we might say that a good many weak-minded South¬ 
ern people are similarly afflicted. They speak of the North as 
‘Gawd’s Country.’ Well, it is well enough that it is God’s country 
to them. But this ‘Gawd’s Country’ is often used as a boast over 
the South as being not altogether God’s country. 

“No one can blame A for praising his own wife; but the very 
minute his praise is intended to disparage B’s wife, B has good 
ground to take offense. Then again, since the war has been de¬ 
cided against the South, many of the people of the North seem to 
think that they are the particularly favored and chosen of God to 
visit vengeance on the South, and, as such, that they deserve special 
mention and will receive special reward, even in heaven, for their 
high and holy work, as they think it. In this they are most dread¬ 
fully mistaken. In fact, they are ‘believing a lie’ that will ultimately 
damage them,—damage them in this, that they will become full of 
selfish pride, get self-conceited. They boast over their neighbor, 
which makes them very offensive; they say, ‘Our own hand has done 
this,’ and forget God. 

“You see that such claim of being the ‘preferred of God before 
thee’ for special high work, or what they deem high work, leads 
to a thousand things out of which practical damnation comes. 
But the worst of all is that if there is any vengeance to be executed 
the Lord always selects a ‘wicked’ outfit for the work. The Scrip¬ 
tures are clear, for it is written in the First Book of Samuel that 
‘wickedness proceedeth from the wicked, but mine hand shall not be 
upon thee,’ and in the Psalms it is expressly declared: ‘Arise, O 
Lord, deliver my soul from the wicked which is thy sword.’ 
There was the Assyrian nation, a most hard-hearted and cruel 
people. This cruel and bloodthirsty people was used to scourge the 
Israelites, as said by the Prophet Isaiah: ‘O Assyrian, the rod of 
mine anger. I will send him against a hypocritical nation, and 


216 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


against the people of my wrath will give hjjn charge to take the 
spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire 
of the streets.' 

“Everywhere the righteous are exhorted ‘not to take vengeance 
into their own hands lest they hurt themselves.’ God’s way of 
executing vengeance is through the law of whatsoever you sow you 
shall also reap. The Israelites sowed to cruelty; the cruel Assyrian 
trod them down like the mire of the streets, and in turn was trodden 
down by the Egyptian, and the Egyptian by some other wicked 
nation, and so on,— : a sort of hell everlasting. 

“Our Northern Methodist people are full of pride that their 
church has been instrumental in visiting vengeance on the slave¬ 
holders. Hence, if the Bible is true, they are of the wicked, of the 
Assyrian cruel cast of character; and, instead of boasting over their 
scourged neighbors, yea, instead of boasting of doing the scourging, 
they should humble themselves and cry out, ‘God be merciful to us, 
miserable sinners!’ They should recognize that they upon whom 
the tower fell, and they whose blood Herod mingled with drink, 
are not sinners above even the Northern Methodist brother. Just 
as certain as the Word of God is true, unless our Northern brethren 
quit their boastful spirit because of their part in scourging the 
South, they also will be scourged and trampled under in the mire.” 

In 1901 one of their ministers issued a circular letter showing 
the terrible mire that this church had fallen into. The reading 
of this circular letter is as appalling to this church as the reading 
of the Master Christian is appalling to the Roman Catholic Church. 

“So I think,” continued John, “our getting out of a church that 
is stiff-necked and boastful, and boastful of being employed as a 
‘sword of the Lord,’ is a happy escape for us.” 

“Yes, I have often noticed this ‘preferred of God before thee’ 
spirit among the preachers that we have met in this church. I 
know that none of 'them is half as good as you. To tell the truth, 
if I had suddenly awaked in some world and visited some of the 
temples of worship and heard such sermQns as I have heard here, 
I would at once conclude that I was in a world ruled over by a 
warrior god. 

“Papa,” continued the wife, “you recollect when we read the 
account given by Carlyle in his ‘History of the French Revolution’ 
of the fate of the Republican advocate and editor, Desmoulins?” 


LIST OF BETTERMENTS. 


217 


“There were so many horrors that took place in that reign of 
evil,” said John, “that I don’t call to mind about Desmoulins. What 
was it?” 

“Why,” said Clara, “Desmoulins was a philanthropist. His 
paper was for years and years an outspoken advocate of the rights 
of the people against the right of kings. He was about such a char¬ 
acter as Abraham Lincoln, or, perhaps, Horace Greeley. Just a few 
days before the close of Robespierre’s career, Desmoulins, who had 
become disgusted with so much bloodshed, said in his paper, ‘The 
time has come, seemingly, for the discontinuance of so many com¬ 
mittees of search and seizure, and for beginning to have a Com¬ 
mittee of Mercy.’ 

“For this he himself was seized by Robespierre’s ‘Reds’ and 
guillotined the very night before the cannon of the Corsican Cor¬ 
poral cleared the streets of Paris of the ‘Guillotiners.’ Now, all 
along, I’ve somewhat felt that such was going to be the fate of such 
people as your father and my father, and other original law-and- 
order and liberty-loving people. Your address on the cause and 
cure of assassination has caused you to be guillotined in the minds of 
the extreme radicals. It is true that you, wisely I think, took time 
by the forelock and executed the sentence yourself, as far as ecclesi¬ 
astical relations are concerned. As a matter of course, you did this 
to save a ‘scene,’ or to save what you men call a ‘row.’ We both 
hate ‘scenes’ or ‘rows’ that only bring notoriety. So I am glad 
that at the conference you quietly folded your tent, and like Abraham 
‘went out’ to—well, I don’t know where. But we will trust that 
the same Lord that directed Abraham’s steps will direct ours. I 
think the Lord is with people individually, and not so much in the 
bulk, and that everything will come all right.” 

“There is one thing, mamma, that we can congratulate either 
ourselves or our Methodist brethren upon, and that is that we leave 
their church without one single hard feeling on our part toward 
them, and so far as we know, not one member or preacher of them 
has any hard feeling personally toward us. It is true, we differ 
with all of the preachers and a big majority of the members as to 
whether there can be any concord whatever between the worship 
of Mars and the worship of the Prince of Peace. As a matter of 
course, they hold to the idea that evil can eventually be overcome 
with evil—sword with sword—violence with violence. At the same 
time we, as conscientious as they are, perhaps, believe that the way 


218 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


to overcome evil is by the use of good, or in the overcoming of evil 
with good. They preach vengeance. We preach forgiveness. They 
preach an eye for an eve, and we hold that such things are of the 
age of barbarism and not of Christian civilization. How do you 
account for such a radical difference between people who, no doubt, 
are equally honest?" 

“Oh," replied the wife, “that is easily accounted for. You 
know that even the idolaters believe in their idols; and the Moham¬ 
medans believe in Mohammed. Why? Simply because they were 
born and brought up in the faith. And we, you know, were brought 
up by parents who taught us to think outside of church creeds and 
to take the Lord Jesus Christ as our only teacher and guide. You 
know it is so easy to determine what Christ would do in any given 
case. For instance, about using the sword. He never used it, and 
forbade his followers to use it. Of this we can be in no doubt; 
because he said to one of them, Tut up thy sword, for all they who 
take up the sword shall by the sword perish.’ T am so glad that our 
parents always told us to 'search/ not the writings or traditions 
of this or that church, but to ‘search the Scriptures.’ In doing that, 
they did exactly what Christ did, for Christ Himself said the same 
thing. 

“Now, we are in no way personally better than the Methodists, 
or even the idolaters or Mohammedans. Had we never been taught 
simply to look to Christ we should have been just as they are. The 
great trouble with most of them is that they have absolutely con¬ 
cluded that their creeds—which were formulated during the Dark 
Ages—are the summing up of the Scriptures." 

Although John’s wife had spoken of “going out" like Abraham, 
yet neither she nor John, perhaps, had any more definite idea of where 
they would go than Abraham had when he went out of the idolatrous 
country of Haran. But John had, as yet, his education, his courage 
equal to his convictions, his motto, Nil desperandnm, his conscience 
absolutely void of offense, his faith that the angels had charge of 
him and would lead him by ways that he knew not out of narrow 
into broad ways; and, above all, he had a “help-meet" who in 
cheery spirit and tactful mind, ready hand and loving heart, never 
faltered, never failed to be at hand at the right time with the 
right word and right deed of helpfulness. 

So Clara read aloud the ninety-first Psalm, laying particular 
stress on verses n and 12, “For ITe shall give His angels charge 


LIST OF BETTERMENTS. 


219 


.over thee to keep thee/’ etc. And John read the one hundred and 
seventh Psalm, rereading verses i to 8: “Oh, give thanks unto the 
Lord, for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever. Let the 
redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the 
hand of the enemy. Hungry and thirsty, their souls fainted in 
them; then they cried out unto the Lord in their trouble, and He 
delivered them out of their distresses. And He led them forth by 
the right way, that they might go to. a city (system of church doc¬ 
trine) of habitation. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His 
goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men.” 

John then, as was his custom, wrote what he called a golden 
or central text of Scripture, and handed it to his wife. This one 
read as follows: “Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel and after¬ 
ward receive me to glory.” 

Thus another “evening” passed, and another “morning” was 
at hand. 

But the “evening and morning” of the sixth day was yet 
afar off. 

Oh, God! What weary stretches of wilderness of sand, of 
serpent, of rocks without water, of fountains of Marah’s bitter 
waters, of Pharaohs in the rear and Philistines in front, of Amale- 
kites on the one hand and Amorites on the other,—what weary 
waste of wilderness between Egypt and Canaan—between the 
country of the unregenerate whose face of horizon is without form 
and void and covered with darkness, and the country of the Sab¬ 
bath sun,—between the first and seventh days of regeneration! 

But with a good wife, like Miriam with a timbrel in her 
hand and a dance in her foot, to be with you at the passages of the 
straits to sing, “The horse and his rider hath the Lord thrown 
into the sea,”—with such a traveling companion, even the wilder¬ 
ness is made to bloom, and desolate places are married to the Lord 
with an offspring of Joy and Peace! 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


WITHOUT A HOME. A WISE WIFE. 


The Counsellors for the First Time Without a Servant—The Frugal 
and Resourceful Wife—John Without a “Church”—But Not Without a 
“Christ”—He Gets a Call to the Church in Which His Mother Died— 
The “Wayfarer’s” Perception, What Is It —His Wife’s “Prescience” of 
the Outcome—John’s Wife Cries for the First Time, and Why?—The Wife 
a Little Staggered. 


The next morning the Counsellors, for the first time ifi the 
history of their own household, and in the history of the households 
of their immediate fathers, awoke without a household servant. But 
both were self-reliant, and like all people who have been well reared, 
could adjust themselves to circumstances however changed from 
those of their former estate. Those who have been properly edu¬ 
cated will always behave themselves seemly when from affluence 
they are reduced to straitened circumstances. In fact, it is a test of 
true nobility to keep a cheery spirit in the change from being 
ministered to to that of ministering. Such was the infinite nobility, 
yea, the very Godliness itself, of Him who came out of the heavens, 
where there were millions of ministering spirits to minister unto 
Him, and took up-a life on earth of ministering to others. 

However, things financially were not so bad as Elder Vander- 
son had predicted for such as preached Christ straight from the 
shoulder. The “going a-fishing” to get a shekel to pay taxes had 
not yet come; for the reason that the frugal and resourceful wife 
had, out of the money they had to start on and out of quite a liberal 
salary as preacher, saved some cash for a rainy day. Perhaps, 
during her thirty-eight years of married life, her 'frugality and re¬ 
sourcefulness and never tiring industry saved John, with his mother’s 
weakness of having a heart, from bankruptcy. 

Strange to say, in all of John and Clara’s life, a “raven,” or an 
earthly angel, always supplied proper meat at the proper time; 

( 220 ) 




WITHOUT A HOME—A WISE WIFE. 221 

though sometimes it appeared that, in order to get rid of debts, they 
would be compelled to plead the statute of the Year of Jubilee. But 
they never did. 

So, cheerily, John began to make fires in the cooking stove, and 
Clara began to nurse the babe and cook the breakfast while he 
milked the cow. 

But this was the smallest burden they had to bear. Here they 
were in this blessed spring day of 1867 without a church. So de¬ 
pendent are most people on a “church,” that when they find them¬ 
selves “without a church” to hold them up, they sink down into 
despair—yea, worse—frequently sink into the mire of infidelity! 
But not so with John and his wife; because, just in the proportion 
that they gave up Churchianity, did they find comfort and support 
in Christianity. It is a little singular how looking to Christ, instead 
of Church, “makes all things new.” 

Still, John was not yet free from the old leaven of churchism, 
and, had it not been for his wise wife, he might perhaps have been 
badly shipwrecked in faith as well as in life. During these days 
he was offered very advantageous business positions; but with his 
experience with the “party politicians,” and his knowledge of the 
foul practices carried on by the priests of the legal profession, he had 
no heart to re-enter the fields of politics or law. So, for the time 
being, he studied much—he prayed much in his closet—he counseled 
often with his wife, and preached here and there on his “own hook” 
as it were. His father was still alive and on the old farm near the 
old Border Ruffian county seat. The war being over, the ministry 
of the Southern Methodist Church, not having much of the carnal 
to boast of as the result of the war, experienced the secret of the 
Divine truth that “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,” and had 
become more spiritually minded than before the war. They now 
saw that such men as Judge Counsellor were right. And such men 
as Judge Counsellor never indulged in piques like “I told you so,” 
but let the dead bury the dead while they took hold of the living, 
forgetting all behind and pressing forward to very high marks of 
goodly prizes. 

The old Judge and his preachers had “made up.” So, it was 
arranged that John should bewailed to take charge of the Southern' 
Methodist church at his old home. Now, John’s wife doubted* the 
expediency of accepting such work, and said to John: 


222 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Papa, while I know that we shall be more at home personally 
in the Southern Methodist Church than we were in the Northern, 
because we and all our folks are Southern people, and no one can 
succeed without being pleasantly related personally, yet I have a 
kind of feeling that your views of 'all the fullness of the Godhead 
being in Christ/ and your ideas about 'the letter that kills’ and 'the 
spirit that quickeneth/ and about the resurrection, and the general 
realities of things and persons in the other life, will get you into 
trouble with the presiding elders, if you are not actually charged 
with and tried for heresy. And you know we both so detest a 
'scene’—a family or a church 'fuss.’ ” 

Here John said: ‘Darling, let me read you a clause in the 
Methodist Discipline which is as follows: Sec. I, Chap. I, Art. 5 
of Articles of Religion.—“The Holy Scripture containeth all things 
necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor 
may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man and should 
not be believed as an article of faith, or necessary to salvation.’ 

“Now under the declaration of the Methodist Constitution most 
certainly there will be room for any preacher to preach anything 
that can be proved from the express words and express spirit of the 
Holy Scriptures. And I would not preach anything, for my right 
hand or for my right eve, that could not be so proved.’’ 

“Well,” replied his wife, “I’m not much of a lawyer, and hardly 
know the relation between a constitution and statute, or by-laws, 
pretended to be made under and drawing their legality and authority 
from the constitution, yet something tells me that if you, as a 
. Methodist minister, should preach any doctrine that could be proved 
from the Law, and the Gospel, and the Psalms, and the Prophets, 
and the Epistles, and the Book of Revelation, and from the “Verily, 
1 say unto you,’ words of Jesus Himself, you will be accused of 
heresy, provided the writings or traditions of the Methodist Church 
should not maintain the doctrine preached by you from the Holy 
Scriptures. Why, was it not this very thing that caused the Jewish 
church authorities to crucify Christ? Christ certainly proved all 
His sayings and doctrines from the 'Scriptures/ which at that time, 
consisted of Law and Prophets and Psalms. 

“But the church had some writings or some traditions that were 
‘ different from the Scriptures, and they thought more of their tradi¬ 
tions or church writings than they did of the 'Scripture’ that Christ 
quoted in vindication of His preaching. Don’t all even of the 


WITHOUT A HOME—A WISE WIFE. 


223 


Methodist commentators, in speaking of the second coming of Christ, 
say that the church will be about as it was when He came the first 
time? I know that about all that you have in your library do this. 
If it is true, and it should happen that they have you up for heresy 
for preaching that there is but one God and that the Lord Jesus 
Christ is this ‘only wise God, our Saviour/ I think you will find that 
you will not be permitted to prove anything from the Law or the 
Gospel, or from the Prophets, or from the Epistles, or from the Book 
of Revelation, or from Christ Himself, or from any source except 
the church writings! 

“It may not be so in your case, but while you were away 
from home I read in the Advocate that this was the way the 
church people did with—well, 1 forget names—but with one of 
their preachers/’ 

“Well, well, well!” said John. “Is not what I have read one of 
the writings of the church itself?” 

“Yes,” said the wife, “that is true; and as you have so much 
Scripture for all that you believe and preach, the presiding elders, 
‘whose mission is to drive heresy from the church/ may let you 
go on, especially as all the best members will concur with you, 
as they have always done. 

“So, all things considered, I reckon that it is best that we 
go up to Richmond and take charge of the church there. Especially 
as you have had such a warm and pressing invitation to do so, 
and your papa’s heart seems to be so set on it. At the least we 
shall never exactly know of things, perhaps, until we learn them. 
You men have to reason to a conclusion that we women see by 
first perception, or by what I reckon is called ‘intuition.’ Though I 
think the Scripture name of that which enables people to see things 
without study as a horse sees, his way out of a wood without 
studying geography, is called perception, or seeing of the way 
favor. 

“I think somewhere the Scriptures speak of the ‘way of holiness’ 
as a something that the ‘wayfaring man’ though a fool (or un¬ 
learned) shall not err therein. There are many things that by 
‘searching’ cannot be found; but of these same things that men try to 
learn, it is written, ‘Behold them!’ I more often ‘behold’ things, as 
a horse sees his way out of the woods, than I get at them by 
‘search.’ However, the good old wise Prophet Hosea says, ‘Then 
we shall know, if we follow on to know the Lord.’ I may be 
mistaken, but we can’t be mistaken in what the good prophet says— 


224 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


we shall know if we follow on to know. So I'll have everything 
ready, any day that you say, to start for your new field of labor. It 
will not take long, because you know that you and the ‘boy’ and 
1 are about all our worldly possessions,—for which we ought just 
now to be glad; because we have to move, and freight is so high 
and things get so broken up in a move.” 

“Dear, dear wife. Had all wives, like you, the tact for getting 
honey out of a lion’s skull, or praise out of wrath, how much 
better the world would be. The truth is that most women have this 
tact,—otherwise there would be ten broken in spirit or bankrupt 
husbands where now there is one. The Lord had many reasons 
for saying, ‘It is not good for man to be alone,’ and woe to the 
Adam to whom it is not said, ‘I will make him a help-meet for him/ 
And woe to the woman’s husband when the wife is but a ‘help-eat’ 
instead of a ‘help-meet.’ The ‘help-meet’ includes the ‘help-eat,’ 
but the ‘help-eat’ by no means includes the ‘help-meet.’ ” 

As John and his wife were about to start for the field of their 
new labors she said: 

“Papa, you so often speak of the ‘evening and the morning’ 
of days or states, of life. Is this particular time ‘evening’ or ‘morn¬ 
ing’ with you?” 

“Why,” said John, “this is the evening, or passing away of 
our life in the Northern Methodist Church and the morning of our 
life as laborers in the Southern Methodist vineyard.” 

To this the wife replied : 

“This ‘morning’ in the Southern Methodist Church may pos¬ 
sibly be succeeded by an evening, may it not? I can’t keep this 
out of my mind.” 

“Well, darling,” said John, “you know that we are expected to 
be continually forsaking and forgetting what is of yesterday and to 
press forward in the work of to-day. Just now our day’s task is set 
before us, and there is no courage in shunning our work. Neither 
is there any wisdom in looking, like Micawber, for any turning up 
of ponds of molasses overhung with apple dumplings! The whole 
of the Christian life seems to be a life of forsaking this and eschew¬ 
ing that, and a daily cross-bearing and crucifixion.” 

Here the dear wife cried outright, for the first time of their 
ministerial life; because she thought that John had concluded that 
her remark about coming things was in the way of complaint, while, 
as she said, it was merely intended to forewarn him of a coming 


WITHOUT A HOME-A WISE WIFE. 


225 


event, so that he might be strong to meet it with all the courage 
of considerate conviction. 

At this time the Counsellors were on a visit to the capital city, 
where their old friend, the newspaper reporter, resided. On the 
night before the day that John was to leave for his new field of 
work the “news” man (“news” in more ways than one) called on 
him and his wife, and we may learn something from the following 
conversation that took place: 

“Well, I’m glad to see you both,” said the doctor, shaking 
hands with them. “Now, tell me candidly, was I right or wrong 
in my prophecy about what you’d meet up with in the ecclesiastical 
or church field in which you have been laborers for the last year?” 

“Well,” replied John, “you were partly right and partly—well 
partly—not exactly wrong. That is, we found some things that you 
said would come to pas$, and others that didn’t come to pass; but—” 

Here the wife said: 

“I told John that some things 'didn’t come to pass’ because he 
didn’t have time,—because everything can’t happen at once.” 

“Yes,” said John, “mamma is right in what she says. Some 
did come to pass and others didn’t, and it may be that had we 
‘followed on’ far enough we would have found everything you said 
was true.” 

“Well, let’s see,” said the editor, “the things that did come 
to pass?” 

“Well,” said John, “we did find that Mars was a little ahead of 
the Prince of Peace in Northern Methodist temples. That is, more 
was said of vengeance than of forgiveness. More stress was laid 
on allegiance to radical views of partisan politics than allegiance 
to the doctrine of ‘holiness unto the Lord.’ I believe that any 
reflection cast on any of the apostles of Jesus would have been 
better tolerated than any reflection made on Apostle John Brown 
or any of the lieutenants of Lincoln. In fact, the whole affair 
strongly reminded me of a very pertinent anecdote that I’ve heard 
the politicians tell.” 

Here the wife said: 

“Pray, John, don’t tell that anecdote in connection with such 
matters.” 

“Well, that depends,” said the editor, “as to whether the an¬ 
ecdote illustrates the idea that we desire to express. If it does, I 
will say let us hear it; because the anecdote is but one form of 
teaching by parable, and is really one of the strongest ways of 


226 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


expressing an idea. So much so that the Great Teacher taught 
altogether by parable; for it is written that ‘without a parable He 
never spoke.' ” 

“It may be,” replied the wife, “that an anecdote is a species 
of parable, and if so is allowable, though I am not clear as to 
this, and being in doubt we shall give the benefit of the doubt to the 
majority, as John and you, doctor, seem to be against me.” 

“Well,” John went on to say, “some years ago, a good Gospel 
preacher held a protracted meeting in one of the mountain moon¬ 
shine-whiskey districts of Georgia. For a week he had preached 
‘Christ and Him crucified’ to large congregations, but had not had 
a ‘jiner.’ At the end of the week a kind of long, lank, sympathetic- 
looking moonshiner away back in the audience got up, and address¬ 
ing the preacher said: ‘See here, Pard, we’uns all think a dad gum 
sight of your man that you air pintin’ out as a candidit for being 
Cap-tin; but the fact air, that we’uns up here in this here mountain 
are Andy Jackson dimicrats. Now, if you’ll preach us all a sermon 
trotting out old Andy Jackson, we’ll all shout and jine your church. 
The man you’ve been sermonizing about is perhaps all right; but 
old Andy Jackson is the man for we’uns in this here setulmint.’ 

“So,” said John, “nobody said anything against the Prince of 
Peace. All allowed that he was very good in his place; but there 
seemed to be a nearly universal agreement with the sentiments of 
the Georgia mountain moonshiner;—we’ve got nothing to say against 
Christ, but for this particular time and settlement, Mars with his 
apostles, John Brown and his lieutenants, Sherman and Sheridan 
with their bloody deeds, are the things to get up an -arousement and 
gain ‘jiners.’ ” 

“Just so,” said the doctor. “I am now sixty years of age, 
thirty of which I spent north of Mason and Dixon’s line, and thirty 
south of that line. I’m not a prophet, but know things when 
I see them. I knew that you would meet with just what you have. 
And I know, had you remained in the Northern Methodist Con¬ 
ference long enough, you would have found everything else that 
I said to be true—and even more. I hear that you are now going 
to take work in the Southern Methodist field. How is this?” 

“Yes,” replied John, “we leave to-morrow for a field of that 
kind.” 

. “Now,” said the doctor, “I do not wish to discourage you. In 
fact, I would not keep you from entering such a field if I could; 
because the only way satisfactorily and thoroughly to find out a 


WITHOUT A HOME—A WISE WIFE. 


227 


thing is to ‘follow on.’ Christ uttered a sentiment in which more 
is bound up than is commonly understood when He said, ‘If any 
man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.’ All of the 
preaching in the world against sin would not so enable people to see 
its enormities as the doing of sin does. In this lives the Divine 
secret of the permission of sin. The preaching of all the truths 
of God are not so convincing of their beauty and beneficence as 
the doing of these truths by practicing what they teach. You must 
go to this new field and learn by actual experience what is* in it. 
Time, combined with eternity, is pretty long; and you will have 
plenty of time to learn everything that is absolutely necessary, with 
a few things to be added to the absolutely necessary things as 
comforts and luxuries.” 

“Well,” queried the wife, “what do you think we’ll meet up 
with in the Southern Methodist Church? They haven’t any John 
Browns in that church, have they ?” 

“Not by name,” replied the doctor, “but a good many by nature, 
—which is all the same thing. For instance, John Brown was a 
fanatic on one side who wished to proceed on a ‘higher law’ plane of 
things. On the other side were such religious dervishes as Stone¬ 
wall Jackson, who in the beginning of the war favored the hoisting 
of the ‘Black Flag.’ Now, if you should say anything against Stone¬ 
wall Jackson in a Southern pulpit, it would have about the same 
effect as saying something about John Brown in a Northern pulpit. 
Telling the truth about either would have the same effect as did 
the ‘casting of fire into the earth’ (truth cast into the mind of an 
earthy church) by the angel, as portrayed in the Revelation. For 
instance, suppose John desired to preach on the subject that, in 
certain events, ‘the publicans and harlots will go into the kingdom 
of heaven’ before certain professors and promisers should enter 
therein. Suppose that, in illustration of this truth, he should find 
it proper to say that Phil Sheridan, the regular outside publican who 
knew that war ‘was but hell’ and as such engaged in it, would go 
into the kingdom of heaven before Stonewall Jackson, the professed 
follower of the Prince of Peace, yet who fornicated, yea, adulterated 
the doctrine of this Prince of Peace by mingling the blood of the 
Christ with the sacrifices offered at the altars of Mars. 

“Now, everybody might know that in the other life it would be 
much harder for the angels to get the tares of error out of the 
mind of Stonewall Jackson—the error of thinking that ‘war is a 
divine way of shooting the gospel into the people,’—than it would be 


228 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

to convince Phil Sheridan that ‘war is but hell/ and as such is to 
be shunned as much as possible. Yet, while this is the truth, should 
John preach it in a Southern pulpit, there would be, not only 
‘thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake’ that would com¬ 
pletely swallow up John, but, amid the mingling of such fire of 
heaven with such hail of an earthly church, the green grass and trees 
of his use would be destroyed. Though, to tell the truth, there 
will not be so great a temptation to laud the lieutenants of Mars in 
the Southern Church as there is in the Northern, because the one 
is sick of war and the other in the full ‘boast’ of it. So you can 
avoid the earthquake and hail business by never preaching pro or 
con on ‘Great is Mars.’ Perhaps you will not be compelled to shout 
hosannas and sing praises to the great captains of Mars as the world, 
the flesh, and the devil ever have and ever will do. 

“But your danger will be on other lines. The very day that 
you even intimate that all of the so-called ‘Orthodox’ Churches are 
drunk, as stated in the Book of Revelation, on the cup of fornication 
of the truth by the great harlot of Babylon that sitteth on many 
waters, then look out for ‘threatenings.’ The very moment that 
you begin to preach that God is a Spirit and should be worshiped 
everywhere and in everything, instead of being worshiped only in 
temples made with man’s hand, then look out for lightnings to strike 
you. Moreover, when you even intimate that this is the time of 
the second coming of Christ,—that the whole earthly church, Romish 
and Protestant, that constitute the so-called ‘Apostolic Church,’ bears 
about the same relation to true Christian doctrine as did the tradi¬ 
tions of the Jews to the true teachings of Christ at His first coming, 
—then look out for hail and fire mingled with blood. In fact, the 
preaching of the truth as proclaimed by Jesus in any of its phases, 
in case such preaching is not sanctioned by the creeds or by the 
elders who interpret such creeds, will cause you to be accused of 
heresy and cast out of the synagogue.” 

“Well! well! well!” exclaimed John. “Didn’t Christ continue 
to preach in the Jewish Church after He knew that the church, 
by its creed or faith, drawn from the traditions of the elders, had 
made all of the commandments of God absolutely void? And we 
can afford to follow His example.” 

“Oh, yes,” replied the doctor, “this is the only thing that you 
ought to do. Let the blood of rejecting the truth be upon the 
church people. You can preach it to them better from the inside 
than the outside, as Christ did. But the time will come when they 


WITHOUT A HOME-A WISE WIFE. 


229 


will cast you out, as prophesied by Christ. Himself. Perhaps, before 
vou get to this necessary mile stone in your ‘going on to know’ I 
may be in the other world. If so, 1 will take an interest in what I 
know will be the case with you both, and that is that the Lord 
will direct you by His counsel and afterward receive you to glory.” 

“Good-bye to you both,” added the doctor, and he went out 
never to be seen by John and his wife any more on earth. Only 
after this they received a long letter from him. 

John's wife was far in advance of him in giving up old errors 
and accepting the truth in their place, for the reason that she had 
never been indoctrinated or proselyted to the theological errors 
incorporated in the faith of the church during the Dark Ages. 
Still, some of the intimations of the good old doctor somewhat 
staggered her, especially when he said that the whole present 
organized world of church doctrine, to say nothing of church life, 
bore about the same relation to true Christian doctrine in this 
time of the second coming as had the doctrine of the Jews to 
Christ’s first coming. Even a woman of such wayfaring perception 
had to learn to some extent “to know by following on to know.” 

Had she then seen forward to the year 1900 she would not 
have staggered at the truth proclaimed by the newspaper editor that 
the prophecy of Jesus and John had come to pass,—that as in the 
first coming so it would be in the days of the second coming,— 
that the Church would be fallen from worship of Jesus the Prince 
of Peace to the worship of Mars the Prince of the power of hell and 
destruction. For in 1900 there is no sign in the heavens or on the 
earth that is more monumental of the fact that so-called orthodox 
Christianity has fallen from its first love of “peace on earth and 
good will to men,” than what is now witnessed both in England 
and the LTnited States engaged in all the bloody orgies of irrational 
wars, sending ship-loads of live soldiers one way and returning ship¬ 
loads of insane and dead soldiers the other! And all merely that 
they may butcher the peasantry of far-away lands whose only crime 
is endeavoring to live under their own vine and fig tree. 

If this bloody orgy or Mars carried on by these so called 
Christian nations does not accentuate the necessity of the second 
comings of the Son of Man as the Prince of Peace, then nothing can 
accentuate such necessity. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


BACK AT THE OLD HOME CHURCH. 


John’s Reception at the Old Home of His Boyhood—The Woe of 
a Reformer—His “Pushing” Instead of “Pulling Out” Way of Preach¬ 
ing—The Mind Not a Corn-crib to Shovel Grain Into, but a Soil—Solo¬ 
mon with His Many Wives and Concubines Explained—John and Clara’s 
Daughter “Allie.” 


It was the last days of the winter of i 866 -’ 67 . John and his 
wife, with “the boy” along, arrived late one afternoon at the old, 
old “Preachers’ Home”—at the home of John’s birth and boyhood. 
His mother did not meet him at the gate, but his father welcomed 
John and Clara and “the boy” at that spot, and made them as 
much at home as it is possible to make any one feel at a place from 
which the one only mother has gone forth forever. 

Ben did not come to the gate. Neither did any of his color 
or kindred. Some of them, like Ben, had gone to their home in 
heaven, some to town—the very Paradise of the freedmen—and a 
few to little homes and farms of their own. They, the colored 
part of the Counsellor family, all seemed to be happy and doing 
well. All of them at once came to see John,—to see “Marse John” 
and the wife that they had heard so much about. 

Within a few days the good Methodist sisters had the parsonage 
prepared and the “larder” filled with good things, and John and 
Clara felt to a great extent that they had been “gathered together 
with kindred.” 

If politics makes strange bedfellows so does civil war. Per¬ 
haps in all their future life (except when they go among the 
angels) John and his wife never could meet with a heartier 
reception, or with kinder treatment, or more cordial co-operation 
than they did from the members of the old home church. If they 
had all been of the same kindness of heart and kindred of blood 
of his own preacher-loving mother, John’s reception and treatment 

( 230 ) 





BACK AT THE OLD HOME CHURCH. 


231 


by the members of the Richmond church and community could not 
have been more generous or more homelike. It showed the innate 
loveliness of the Southern heart. 

Oh, the woe that comes to the reformer who goes continually 
forward and is caused to part religious company with such fathers 
and mothers, and brothers and sisters, as he found in the church 
of his old home. 

William Cullen Bryant, in his poem, “The Battlefield,” com¬ 
paring the warfare of the moral and religious reformer with a battle 
says: 

Soon rested those who fought; but thou 
Who minglest in the harder strife 

For truths which men receive not now, 

Thy warfare only ends with life. 

A friendless warfare! lingering long 

Through weary day and weary year, 

A wild and many-weaponed throng 

Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear. 

Yet nerve tjiy spirit to the proof, 

And blanch not at thy chosen lot, 

The timid good may stand aloof, 

The sage may frown,—yet faint thou not. 

Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, 

The foul and hissing bolt of scorn; 

For with thy side shall dwell, at last, 

The victory of endurance born. 

/ Truth crushed to earth shall rise again; 

Th’ eternal years of God are hers; 

But Error, wounded, dies in pain, 

And dies among his worshipers. 

Yea, though thou lie among the dust, 

When they who helped thee flee in fear; 

Die full of hope and manly trust, 

Like those who fell in battle here. 

Another hand thy sword shall wield, 

Another hand the standard wave, 

Till from the trumpet’s mouth is pealed 
The blast of triumph o’er thy grave. 

The only balm for such woe is this,—that when all are placed 
under the ministrations of angels in the world to come, then, under 


232 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


the great wisdom of these angel ministers and by their tutelage, will 
all the minds of those whose hearts beat together be brought to see 
together, and mind and heart being partakers of the same at-one- 
ment, all will be led to live together as one family in the Father’s 
Home. 

But here on earth some who are stationary see nothing of the 
new things ushered in by Him who saith, “Behold, I make all things 
new;” while others, no better of heart or of life, are continually 
in birth pangs of mind in beholding new and wondrous things out 
of the words of Him who is the “Wonderful Counselor,” and go 
forward out of the realm of those who do not see. But in the 
other life all who are alike in heart will be led to see alike, and will 
come together again in a glorious reunion. 

No man need court the life of “putting off all old things and 
putting on all new ones.” ‘ Such a life made even the Son of Man 
a “Man of Sorrows,”—made His countenance “marred as no other 
man’s was ever marred” by crucifixions and sufferings,—yea, made 
Him so like a root in dry ground that many deemed Him “stricken 
of God.” But to the external thread of our story. 

After John’s introductory sermon on the subject of the necessity 
and beneficence of “Charity that never vaunts itself, yet never 
falters or fails,” he proceeded along the line of his own experience. 
That experience had taught him that the human mind is not like a 
corn-crib into which grain can be shoveled by the wagon load; but 
is rather like the soil of a field in which the seed must first be sown, 
then allowed to spring up, and then be cultivated. He had begun 
to see, at least “in a glass, darkly/’ that the “Divine laws work no 
eruptive or violent changes.” He knew how gradually and slowly 
old errors were supplanted in his own mind. Hence he rather en¬ 
deavored to eradicate error, not by attacking it directly, but by a 
process somewhat similar to that by which the old decayed teeth of 
children are gotten out of the way by the new teeth coming up from 
beneath and gradually pushing them out. This pushing out of 
wisdom teeth and other teeth is much superior to the “pulling out” 
process. So John, in his pulpit ministrations, preached new and 
beautiful truths that had never been heard in “orthodox” pulpits 
before. These new truths were greatly acceptable to the membership 
in general. From time to time an old brother, or sister, said to John : 

“I wonder that I never saw that before.” 

One old brother said to him : 


BACK AT THE OLD HOME CHURCH. 


233 


“You’ll be bishop before you are old enough to hold such a 
big place.” 

‘ He scarcely knew that an irreconcilable antagonism had already 
begun to form in John’s mind between a church with big bishops 
like “princes of the Gentiles exercising dominion over them” and a 
church in which all are brethren and only he is greatest whose 
servanthood is greatest. 

Among these new truths that he sowed as seed, pretty much, 
it must be admitted, not only “beside all waters,” but in a good 
many waste and thorny and wayside and stony places, were such 
as the Lord Jesus Christ is the one only God. The resurrection is not 
the raising up of a man’s decayed natural body, some day in some 
way, but, when a man’s body dies and goes to the dust to remain 
there forever, his spirit, or the man himself who is a spirit, is raised 
up to the plane of the spiritual world to live forever in a spiritual 
body. 

At the funeral of children he would cheerfully and confidently 
maintain that the child is now in charge of angels in the spiritual 
world; that these angels who, under the Father’s direction, take 
charge of little children when they leave their parents’ home on 
earth and go up to the Father’s Home in the other world, are women 
who whije upon earth most tenderly loved little children, and who in 
the heavens, for ages perhaps, have been specially instructed by the 
Lord how tenderly to receive and care for and wisely to bring up 
little ones in the heavenly nurture. 

John would explain all of the seemingly “hard sayings” to be 
found in the Scriptures, such as the apparent contradictions in 
Genesis where it is stated that there was light the first day, yet the 
sun, moon, and stars, the source of light, were not created until the 
fourth day. He also explained so plainly that a wayfarer could see 
what the “Tree of Life” was, and what the “serpent” was, and how 
it was that man—male and female—was created, man before the 
woman. And, to the great satisfaction of the sisters, he would 
show what was meant by the woman being subject to the man, 
the spiritual meaning of which is that the heart or feelings should 
be governed by the head, or cool judgment; and not that a man 
should dominate over his wife, for husband and wife are com¬ 
plementary parts of one unit. 

By his spiritual discernment he made the rock to gush forth 
with waters, and the seemingly barren places to become gardens 
with fountains and fruits. Such scriptures as Jonah and the whale, 


234 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Noah’s flood, the Garden of Eden, Cain finding a wife when, seem- 
ingly, only his father and mother and he existed, Solomon with 
his multitude of wives and concubines, the cruel wars of extermina¬ 
tion,—in fact, every seemingly ‘‘rocky thing” stated in the Scriptures 
became a source from which John could bring a beautiful spiritual 
lesson. Under his words the other life seemed more real than this. 
“Bodiless” ghosts gave way to real people in beautiful spiritual 
bodies of an imperishable nature, or, as the apostle said, “eternal in 
the heavens.” The harmless vagabondism of aimlessly wandering 
about in the other world in multitudinous assemblages, singing 
and praising forever, gave way to the restful idea of a home life 
with all the solid delights of having some of your own sort of 
people to love and be loved by. Formless throngs living in the blare 
and glare of continual publicity gave way to the privacy of homes 
where things of thought and affection and action centered around 
those of the home folks, home life, and home works. From a state 
“without form and void” and mystery, with darkness brooding on 
its face, the life to come became a world with its spiritual earth and 
heavens and people and pursuits more real and more enduring than 
those of this world. 

To such an extent and with such precision did he explain all 
“hard sayings” that an eminent professor once exclaimed to him: 

“I honestly believe that your science of understanding and 
teaching the Scriptures is as exact as that of mathematics in teach¬ 
ing the principles and practice of numbers!” 

These things greatly pleased all the members except the 
preachers. 

Now, notwithstanding John would prove everything he said 
by hundreds of texts cited from Law, Prophets, Psalms, Gospels, 
Epistles, and Revelation, as well as by things approved in the book 
of nature, yet the elders began to suspect heresy. John’s spirit was 
so genial and sunshiny and his works so abundant, that it was hard 
for the elders to “accuse him,” and he did slip through any public 
accusation at the hands of Brother Dockery, his presiding elder at 
Richmond, and Brother Rush, his presiding elder at Platte City, and 
of Brother Joe Pritchett, his presiding elder for the first year on 
Clarksville Circuit. But, alas, the crisis was coming when he would 
have to stand at the judgment-seat of such as claim to be sent and 
commissioned of Christ to drive heresy from the church. And this, 
notwithstanding that there are two great historic facts which should 
discourage, if not absolutely prevent, all “castings out of the syna- 


BACK AT THE OLD HOME CHURCH. 


235 


gogue” for heresies. One of these facts is that Jehovah Himself, 
while incarnate in the Christ, or divine-human body, on the earth, 
never did in one single instance accuse anybody in any nation, kin¬ 
dred, tongue, or tribe who was trying to do some good of heresy. 
The second fact is still more significant,—that Christ Himself was 
accused of heresy by the elders and crucified on a charge of preach¬ 
ing blasphemy. 

Why is it that the church never bewares of the scribes and 
pharisees? The only very unpleasant little thing that overtook 
John’s wife at the Richmond parsonage was that, after she had 
gone to much pains to prepare dinner for the presiding elder, he 
"peferred tea to coffee and couldn’t eat ham,” when the good wife 
had only prepared coffee and ham. John learned a lesson from this, 
and in the thousands of meals that he had eaten at the tables of hos¬ 
pitable people, he ate any and every thing set before him with joy 
and thanksgiving. Long years afterward, in Texas, John and his 
wife had a '‘treat” of a similar thing. They were then living on a 
ranch and farm. A Methodist quarterly meeting was in session at 
the chapel—Morton’s Chapel—near the residence of the Counsellors. 

Like the old "Preachers’ Home” of his mother, the home of 
John’s wife was ever given to hospitality. As the country was 
then, in 1875, sparsely settled, everybody took dinner to the "meetin’ 
house” and had "dinner on the ground” in more senses than one. 
John’s wife had prepared what she called an altogether "home-made 
meal.” The chickens and the ham were home raised. The "light 
bread” was made of home-raised wheat, and even the cake was made 
of wheat and "sweetened” with "sweetening” home raised. ' In that 
day, in that part of Texas where John and Clara found themselves, 
there were not many "brought on” things to be had for love or 
money. So, being out of "brought on” sugar, and really desiring 
to show her housekeeping qualities of making use of home things, 
the good wife had sweetened the cake with—well—with sorghum 
molasses! John invited the presiding elder (Thank God his name 
is forgotten) to "eat dinner with them.” 

When the wife was about to hand the cake around, John, some¬ 
what in the spirit of pride, said that the dinner was "Ho-made”— 
that even the cake was sweetened with "Ho-made” sorghum mo¬ 
lasses ! When the cake was handed to the "elder” he very rudely 
remarked that "he had eaten (he called it "et-en”) a good deal of 
hard-pan since he had been in Texas, but he couldn’t stand such 
stuff as cake made of ‘sog-um.’ ” 


236 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Here again, after many years, John was sadly tempted to take 
his letter out of the church and give the preacher a “cussin’.” In 
his own mind he ran a comparison between this rude boor and his 
own wife, who had eaten at sumptuous tables at Cape May, at Sar¬ 
atoga, at London, and at the paradise of epicures, Paris itself. And 
now for a meal that she felt proud of to be not only refused, but 
slurred at as “stuff” by this boor! Why, almost anybody would 
have been justified not only in thinking “cuss words,” but might 
have been allowed to “out with them.” But he didn't. Since the 
days of Brother McNal’s treatment of his mother’s meal, when he 
exclaimed, “He is a d—n old scoundrel, and that is all he is,” John 
had learned a good deal and had entered “more abundantly” into 
the life of that supreme Christian grace and virtue that “hopes all 
things, bears all things, and endures all things.” 

To show how he silenced infidels, or rather those who were 
skeptical of a good many things related in the Bible, we will relate 
an incident. 

On John’s circuit at Camden there lived a very intellectual and 
broad-gauged man, Dr. Ralph. The doctor was skeptical of all 
things that he didn’t understand, and which, in the letter, looked 
impossible. One of his great delights was to puzzle the preachers. 
One day, as John was passing a crowd in which the doctor was 
holding forth on the subject of Solomon with his seven hundred 
wives and three hundred concubines, the good old doctor hailed him 
and said: 

“See here, Brother Counsellor, I understand that you pride 
yourself on believing everything in the Bible.” 

“Yes,” replied John, “I believe the Bible from ‘kiver to kiver,’ 
and I believe that you would do so too if you only understood it, 
for I am no better than you. Only I have studied it from a differ¬ 
ent standpoint from that which you have.” 

“Well,” said the doctor, “I guess there is one thing that you 
have studied from the standpoint of a Mormon if you say that you 
believe in it.” 

“What is that?’ queried John, as he took a- seat on the porch 
of the drug-store corner, where the doctor’s disciples had gathered 
about him to hear his usual “gitting away with preachers.” 

“Why,” exclaimed the doctor, “what about that big Bible man, 
Solomon, with several hundred wives and several hundred concu¬ 
bines? What do you make of that, and yet let Solomon remain 
the wisest of men and one after God’s own heart?” 


BACK AT THE OLD HOME CHURCH. 237 

“Why, doctor,” said John, “I know you, and know how broad- 
gauged and liberal in mind you are. You are neither a partisan in 
politics nor a sectarian in religion. You are a sort of good 
old Samaritan who does not pay much attention to church matters 
up at Jerusalem or down at Jericho, as the priest and Levite did to 
the neglect of doing good to a needy neighbor. All know you to 
be a kind of mule-riding old Samaritan who will get off of your mule 
and let a neighbor ride if he gets crippled. I appeal to this—I almost- 
said congregation. Well, I will say it. I appeal to this congrega¬ 
tion to say whether I have not described you correctly.” 

The crowd responded, “That’s him.” “He’s a broad gauger.” 

“Well then, that being the case,” said John, “we will soon have 
the doctor a convert to believing in the great lesson taught by Sol¬ 
omon with his wives and concubines. Let us put the doctor on 
the witness stand; because I don’t believe in doing as some preach¬ 
ers do—getting up into the pulpit and having all the say and the 
other fellow not having a chance to say anything for fear of dis¬ 
turbing religious worship. Doctor, are you willing to take the 
stand as a witness, and answer a few questions? If so, I think 
we can prove the case by you.” 

“Certainly,” jovially responded the good old skeptic. 

“All right,” said John. “Now, doctor, you’ll admit that in 
trying a man for what he says and does, we ought to find out 
what he does say, and what he says it for?” 

“Certainly I do,” answered the doctor. 

“Then you’ll admit that the Bible everywhere compares, or 
likens, a church to a woman, or a wife, or a mother, a bride, and 
such like things?” 

“Certainly,” said the doctor, “I’ll admit that.” 

“Now, you’ll admit that the Lord is likened unto a husband,— 
a bridegroom to the church?” 

“Yes, we all admit that,” responded the doctor. 

“Then you’ll admit that Solomon was in the Bible recognized 
as the head of the church in his day, and as such represented the 
Lord as the true Head of the Church?” 

“Why, certainly, we all admit this, and this is the very thing 
we all object to,” exclaimed the doctor. 

“Well, let’s see,” said John. “Let us apply what you have 
admitted to the case, or apply the facts to the law; but before 
doing this, let me ask you for a few more facts. I will first ask 
you, ‘How many churches are there in the world ?” 


238 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Well,” said the doctor, “a good many.” 

“Yes,” said John, “let us get a few particulars. Doctor, how 
many Methodist churches are there?” 

“Well, my wife is a member of your Methodist church,” said 
the doctor, “and I heard her say that there are twenty odd different 
Methodist churches alone.” 

“Yes,” said John, “twenty-seven different Methodist churches! 
Now, do you suppose, doctor, that the Lord, who says He lets His 
sun shine and rain fall without much partiality,—do you suppose 
that the good Lord has confined Himself to just one particular 
Methodist church and has nothing to do, no connection whatever, 
with all the other Methodist churches ?” 

Here the good doctor began to “wobble on the spindle,” when 
one of his former disciples said, “Take your medicine, old hoss!” 

John continued, “Yes, there are some twenty Methodist churches, 
some dozen or more Baptist churches, some twenty odd different 
kinds of Presbyterian churches, and churches of some kind in ev¬ 
ery nation and tribe,—in fact, about as many churches as Solomon 
had wives. And the great Head of the Church says that in every 
nation, kindred, tongue, and tribe in all the earth, wherever in 
any or all of them there is found one that loves God and works 
righteousness, He hath respect to such. He reckons Himself like 
unto the sun which flows into and conjoins itself with good seed 
in every field of every clime and nurses these good seed into good 
fruit. Of no one church can it be said that 'out of this fold I have 
no sheep;’ but of all He always said. ‘I’ve sheep not of this fold.’ 
On that great typical day of all days, the day of Pentecost, to whom 
did the great Head of the Church conjoin Llimself by pouring out 
and bestowing His great spirit? Was it on the Jew alone or the 
Greek alone? No. But on Jew and Greek, bond and free, on Meso¬ 
potamian and Cyrenian, on Parthians and on Pamphylians, on 
Elamites and Egyptians, on strangers and proselytes,—yea, on de¬ 
vout men out of every nation under heaven. 

“Indeed, doctor, it is seen that God is no respecter of this 
or that nation or church over another. Neither are you, doctor; 
because you believe that God loves a good man and a good act 
wherever found. Do you not, my dear doctor?” 

“Certainly I do,” replied the doctor, “and if this is what is meant 
to be taught by Solomon and his many wives, then I say, Hurrah 
for Solomon!” 


BACK AT THE OLD HOME CHURCH. 


239 


“So I knew you would, doctor,” cheerily responded John. 

“But,” queried the doctor, “what about the concubine busi¬ 
ness ?” 

“Well,” said John, “those who have the Bible, or any kind 
of written bond, or word, revealed from the Lord, are conjoined 
to the Lord by and through this revealed Word. These are ‘mar¬ 
ried wives’ or churches. Those nations that have no-recorded or writ¬ 
ten word or covenant, such as marryings are, are not wives, or 
conjoined to the Lord through any revealed law or marriage bond; 
yet they are a law, as the Book says, unto themselves. And through 
this, the Lord conjoins Himself and deals with them according to 
the light which they have. These are in connection with the Lord 
as those not exactly in married relation, but as concubines are to 
husbands. Or we may say that there are two kinds of followers of 
God,—those who follow Him from love, and those who follow him 
from the dictates of duty or truth. Those who are led by their af¬ 
fections, or love, or heart, are the ‘wives,’ those who are governed 
more from a sense of duty, or from a spirit of obedience, are the 
‘concubines.’ 

“You know that people were created in the ‘image of God,’ 
that is, they have minds, or thoughts. Also they were created in 
the ‘likeness’ of God, that is, they have a heart, or affections. The 
wives are predicated of those in whom the ‘likeness’ nature predom¬ 
inates; and the ‘concubine’ is predicated of those in whom the 
‘image’ nature dominates. The wife is of the celestial type of char¬ 
acter; while the concubine is of the servant or spiritual type.” 

By thus explaining the Scripture, instead of denouncing honest 
skeptics, the old doctor and about all of his skeptical disciples were 
converted to more respect for the Scriptures, at least, which is a 
great step in converting men to God Himself. 

So John, by thus expounding and explaining, hushed, not only 
the croaking of chronic complainers, but actually converted many 
skeptics who at heart were good men. It is true that some of 
the preachers did not approve of John’s way of explaining things; 
but this kind, not only never had any rational explanation them¬ 
selves of such things, but would get incensed at and condemn to 
everlasting damnation any honest skeptic who said he couldn’t be¬ 
lieve anything that he could not understand,—notwithstanding the 
truth is that no man can really believe anything that he cannot un¬ 
derstand. 


240 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Blessed is he that heareth my words and understandeth them/ - ’ 
saith the Lord. 

So John passed the year on the old home circuit. He added 
many members to the church. Among them were three ladies 
named “Alice,” one of whom was the wife of Dr. Shotwell, whom 
the doctor called “Allie.” In commemoration of these “Alices,” 
John and his wife called their first daughter, who was born at the 
old Richmond parsonage, Alice. She is now living in Texas, the 
happy wife of a good citizen. It is she who is typewriting this 
story, and deserves about as much credit as the writer, in upholding 
his hands, as the wife would have done had she not gone away to 
live among the angels. There is no really good work that a man 
can do well without a Mary or Martha to anoint his head and bathe 
his feet, or a Miriam to shout exultation into his wearied soul, as 
even the blessed daughter “Allie” has done to the writer of this 
book. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


ON PLATTE CITY CIRCUIT. 


An Episode at the Home of Dr. Shotwell—The “Only One God” 
Preached and Explained—Sister Marshall Gives a Dinner Where Spirit¬ 
ual Subjects Are Not Side-Tracked by Any “On to Kansas” Committee 
Business—The African and the Anglo-Saxon in the Wprld to Come— 
A Very “Rocky” Subject Explained, and Sister Marshall Made Happy— 
John Ordained Deacon—An Ominous Day Coming. 


After relating a little conversation between John and Dr. Shot- 
well, after whose wife the daughter “Allie” mentioned in the last 
chapter was called, we will go with John to a circuit which was the 
very “creme de la creme” of the Border Ruffian Region in the fifties. 

One Sabbath day John preached from the text, “For unto us a 
child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be 
upon his shoulders; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Coun¬ 
selor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of 
Peace.” 

John had explained that the “Son” was but the “body” that 
the Father had begotten and clothed Himself with, that so he might 
reveal Himself in the flesh to men on the earth, so as to become 
“God manifest in the flesh.” ITe showed how it was that God had 
to “veil Plimself,” “hide Himself,” “clothe Himself” in a fleshly 
body and nature like that of men, in order that He might mediate 
Himself down to men, like coming to like. Plence the “Christ,” the 
“Son,” the anointed humanity, was and is called a “Mediator.” Fie 
showed what Paul meant when he declared of Jesus that he “was 
made a little lower than the angels,” namely, by taking on Himself 
the seed of Abraham.” Inasmuch as the Father was not visiting 
Flis angel children, who in celestial bodies, live on the celestial or 
heavenly planes of life, but had to “bow the heavens and come 
down” to His children in earthly or fleshly bodies, living on the 
earth. lie had to “prepare an earthly or fleshly body,”—otherwise, 

9 (241) 





242 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


His children on the earth in the flesh could not see Him, could not 
hear Him, could not “come to Him,” any more than a man without 
having his spiritual senses opened can see a spirit. 

John explained marjy passages of Scripture about God “prepar¬ 
ing Himself a body,” about the Father visiting His earthly children 
and in order to do so having to veil or clothe Himself in a body like 
that of His children, so that He might “mediate” and “manifest” 
Himself, like to like. And in conclusion, he explained the manifold 
texts of Scripture declaring that “there is but One God,” and that 
the Lord Jesus Christ is that “God manifest in the flesh,” in “whom 
dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily,” in a body. 

When he had finished the doctor came forward and invited him 
to take dinner with him at his home near by. When all were seated 
at the dinner table, the doctor said to John: 

“Brother Counsellor, I have invited you here, not so much to 
eat some of Allie’s good dinner, but to express to you my sincere 
thanks for the light that vour sermon let shine into what has been 
a very dark place in my religion. Ever since I began to think about 
Bible matters, I have been perplexed and pained on one point. The 
truth is, I had in my mind at least two distinct gods, or persons, as 
we Methodists call them—God the Father and God the Son. To 
be plain, I always loved God the Son because He seemed so kind 
and so good, and took so much interest in us poor sinners. And 
I must confess that I never liked ‘God the Father,’ because He 
seemed to want some one to pay Him—pay Him a ‘price’—before 
He would consent to forgive and help his poor erring children. 
Now you know how painful such a thought must necessarily be. 
The good doctor stretched his arm over the table and taking John’s 
hand said: 

“But, thank God, I now see that it was the Father Himself 
who prepared or ‘begot’ a body born of an earthly mother so that 
He Himself might come down to earth and hunt up and help His 
earthly children. I now understand what was meant in the four¬ 
teenth chapter of John when Jesus said, ‘He that seeth me seeth 
the Father.’ The Father dwelt in His earthly body that you see, 
just as a man’s soul dwells in his body; for man is in the image and 
likeness of God, having a ^soul which dwells in a body, and which 
speaks and works and manifests itself through the body. The 
Christ is the body. The Father is the soul. The two are one. The 
Holy Spirit is the power of the soul,—the very life that comes from 
the soul, and through the body is ‘poured out’ just as my soul is 


ON PLATTE CITY CIRCUIT. 


243 


pouring itself through my tongue in what are called words, which 
reach and make an effect on you. The soul, or Father, is the ‘Life’ 
from which all things come, the body, or Son, is ‘the way’ by which 
all things come, and the Holy Spirit is ‘the truth’ poured out or shed 
forth from the Father, or soul, through the Son, or body, just as 
the light of the sun is shed forth from the essential heat in the 
sun by means of the body of the sun. I see why God is likened 
unto the sun,—not that there are ‘three’ suns, but three essentials 
that make up the ‘one’ sun. Thank God, thank God, that my mind 
has been cleared of the horrible idea of three Gods. I now see and 
love the Lord Jesus Christ, as vour text said, as the ‘Mighty God and 
the Everlasting Father’ Himself.” 

John had many such happy confessions, which he called “con¬ 
fessing the Lord Jesus Christ” as Fie should be confessed,—con¬ 
fessed as the “First and the Last,” “The Alpha and Omega,” “The 
Beginning and the End,” and “beside whom there is no God—no, 
not any,” as .attest all of the Scriptures. 

Whether this “second coming of Christ” was to the good doc¬ 
tor and his family merely the light of the “first day,” like “the 
lightning that cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the 
west shall also the coming of the Son of Man be,” whether the 
second coming of the Son of Man was to the doctor’s mind as the 
lightning that fitfully glares and then goes out in midnight dark¬ 
ness, or whether it has become, through hunger and thrist for heav¬ 
enly meat and drink to be found in and by searching the Scripture, 
the sun, moon, and stars of the good doctor’s “fourth day” of recre¬ 
ation or regeneration in Christ Jesus the Lord,—of this John 
to-day does not know. It is very probable, if he remained under 
the influence of those who teach of “three distinct persons in the 
Godhead,” that he is still about the precincts of that world that is 
without form and void,—a state of mind in which all are who have 
no distinct knowledge of the Godhead. Such worship an image and 
receive the mark of the beast in either forehead or hand. Perhaps 
it is better when any one receives new light for him to hearken unto 
the angel voice and “come out,”—come out of. any Babylon that 
makes the mind stagger with its spiritual drunkenness about those 
spiritual things appertaining to God, who is a Spirit. 

At the end of the conference year John was assigned as a field 
of labor what was called the Platte' City Circuit. Flis w r ork here 
was about the same as that on the Richmond station. Here he 
found that the bloody dream of a great Southern Confederacy, 


244 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

founded on the idea that Cotton is King and Slavery is its prophet, 
had disappeared, as all dreams of “baseless fabric” will disappear. 

There was a very excellent and Christian-spirited lady who 
was a member of one of John’s congregations. She was a high- 
strung Southern woman, and was greatly perplexed in mind about 
the social relations of blacks and whites in this and in the world 
to come. On one occasion she gave a dinner and invited John and 
his wife. Now, John and his wife did not treat this dinner as 
Brother and Sister McNal had treated the last dinner ever given by 
John’s mother to “our preacher.” John was not a member of any 
“committee of safety for colonizing Kansas with slavery.” He was 
utterly “without guile” or malice toward any one. Nothing pleased 
him better than for .any “insider” or “outsider” in the bounds of 
his work to seek the unraveling of knotty problems or ask for light 
on dark places. 

After dinner, when all had “gathered together” in the parlor, 
the hostess, whom we shall call Mrs. Marshall (which is not her 

real name, though she is a real person), said: 

“Brother Counsellor, I am much pestered about one thing. I 
heard, when you were appointed to our circuit, that you could ex¬ 
plain about every hard thing in the Bible; and so far as I have 

heard you preach on such subjects as ‘Water Gushing Out of 

Rocks’ and the ‘Israelitish Women borrowing Jewels of Silver and 
Gold and Garments from their Neighbors,’ and, in fact, so far as I 
have heard you explain ‘dark sayings’ that other preachers never 
touch on, I begin to believe that you can get ‘honey out of rocks,’ 
as David somewhere in the Psalms said could be done. Now, then, 
I am pestered about a very ‘rocky’ matter, and if you can get any 
honey out of it, or if you can make any refreshing water gush forth 
from this, to me, a very hard, rocky thing, then I will petition the 
conference to keep you as our preacher for a hundred years.” 

“It is true, Sister Marshall,” said John, “that there is a key 
to the Scriptures which, if you are in possession of it, will help you 
to unlock, or, as is said in Revelation, ‘to open’ all things in the 
Bible; and in opening the Bible will open up a clear understanding 
of everything of life in this world and in the world to come, for 
the Bible is even a revelation of ‘things to come’ in the spiritual 
world. 

“When I was a student at the State University, scarcely know¬ 
ing how or when, I began to study the Scriptures in a kind of off¬ 
hand way as something that could be understood, and, when un- 


ON PLATTE CITY CIRCUIT. 


245 


derstood, would explain any and all problems of life, present and 
to come. And, while I am a mere neophyte,'—a mere beginner in 
teaching what the Scriptures reveal,—ryet nearly always I can give 
a very satisfactory explanation, if not a perfect solution, of any 
problem of importance. Some day I hope to be able so to divide the 
Word of God as in some degree to make all unto whom I minister 
‘wise unto salvation,’—salvation, not only from every sin, but sal¬ 
vation from every perplexity of mind. So let us hear what is your 
perplexity.” 

“It is this,” responded Mrs. Marshall. “For the sake of my 
soul I can’t tolerate the idea, let alone the practice, of inviting ne¬ 
groes to eat at my table, and to let them associate on terms of equal¬ 
ity and personal intimacy with my daughters and family. Yet, I 
suppose, when we get to heaven we will all have to live in one 
great family circle. Now, can you get any sweet ‘honey’ or re¬ 
freshing ‘water’ out of this rather ‘rocky’ situation that I am in?” 

“Why,” cheerfully responded John, “most certainly we can. Now, 
to gain a proper understanding of any problem in arithmetic or 
other science some things must be learned and understood before 
you can expect to understand others. The primary principles of 
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division must be under¬ 
stood before we can be expected to understand how to solve a prob¬ 
lem in the rule of three. Arithmetic itself as a whole must be un¬ 
derstood before one can solve problems in geometry and trigonom¬ 
etry. Everybody, even a wayfarer, knows this.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Marshall, “we all recognize what you say 
to be true, and therefore I understand that I am to go to college 
and graduate and get a diploma as a kind of bachelor, or rather 
mistress of Bible science, before I can be expected to understand 
how to solve the problem that I have asked you to solve? Oh me, 
what can I do ?” 

Here both John and his wife laughed heartily at the seemingly 
right conclusion of Sister Marshall. 

“In some respects you are right, Mrs. Marshall,” John at once 
replied. “You must understand some things before you can un¬ 
derstand others; but you do not have to go to college to study such 
things. All necessary things of the kingdom of heaven are like 
that kingdom itself, ‘always at hand.’ The whole curriculum or 
college course of the kingdom of heaven is very easy of understand¬ 
ing, and for all purposes of one step at a time can be completed 
in a very little while. The mere mention, or as you say, the mere 


246 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


‘preaching’ of certain things which you will understand as soon 
as heard, and then the application of these things to the subject in 
hand, is -all of the course, so far as that point or subject is con¬ 
cerned. Every Sunday the sermon should be a college course on 
some subject, and all the congregation should graduate in it and 
receive diplomas, and then—well—‘go on’ to something else. So 
let us see about the subject that perplexes you. 

“There are certain things that everybody understands and ad¬ 
mits. Among these are: 

“First, that, while the world may be said to be one world, yet, 
there are a great many different countries in this one world. These 
many countries always have differed and always will differ in many 
respects. 

“So, also, everybody who understands the Bible knows that, 
in speaking or revealing things about the other world, there is but 
one ‘Father’s House.’ Yet, in this ‘House’ are ‘many mansions/ 
Everybody who has studied the Bible knows that even the heavens 
are divided into at least three grand divisions; because Paul said 
that he ‘was caught up into .the third heaven,’ and all know that 
there cannot be a ‘third’ without a ‘first’ and ‘second.’ Every 
Bible scholar knows that there is not one single place in all of the 
Scriptures where the other world is spoken of under the name of 
heaven, but that the term ‘heavens’ is always in the plural number. 
Hence we conclude that, like the earth, heaven is divided into ‘many 
mansions’—many divisions—yes,'into many countries. 

“Second, we all know and understand from actual knowledge, 
or from history, that the inhabitants of the different earthly coun¬ 
tries differ very materially from each other. The people of Africa 
differ in many respects from the inhabitants of Europe, and the 
people of Europe differ from those of Asia. Even the people of 
the same grand division materially differ. For, in the several coun¬ 
tries of Europe we find the German differing from the French, and 
the English from the Turks, and the sunny children of Italy greatly 
differ from the fierce Cossack of the winter countries of the Si¬ 
berian seas. Yes, even in the same England, even in the same 
United States, even in the same town of any country, we find peo¬ 
ple who, in nearly every respect, differ,—differ in looks, differ in 
taste, differ in their‘ideas of things. Some prefer and are happy 
with certain things and pursuits, and some are happy with others, 
each moving in his own circle or set. Everybody understands this. 


ON PLATTE CITY CIRCUIT. 


247 


“Now, the Bible says that by understanding earthly things 
we may understand heavenly ones; or, as expressed by Jesus, ‘It 
1 have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye be¬ 
lieve' if I tell you of heavenly things?’—by which he meant that 
heavenly things could be understood only by analogy between them 
and earthly things. Hence, it is written that the Heavenly Father 
taught by parable, and ‘without a parable He never spake.’ Hence, 
also, the great apostle says: ‘For the invisible things 
are clearly seen,—being understood by the things that are made.’ 

“So we may learn, we may clearly ‘see,’ yes, positively know, 
that, if the people of the several countries on earth differ from 
each other,—differ so much that they live in different climates, live 
in different countries, look different;—so will the people in the 
various divisions of the three great heavens differ greatly, and will 
live in separate ‘mansions,’—yea, there will be many diverse kinds 
of people, not only in the three grand divisions, but those in each 
grand division will differ even as the inhabitants of Europe are 
differentiated into such distant and unlike nationalities as the Ital¬ 
ian and the Cossack, the Turk and the English, the German and 
the Ff^nch. 

“In exact keeping with this idea of a great differing of people 
in the other world, the most learned- of all the apostles clinches his 
argument on the resurrection by exclaiming, ‘All flesh is not the 
same. . . . There are celestial bodies and bodies terrestial. . . . 
There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and an-* 
other glory of the stars; for even one star differs from another 
star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.’ 

“What can be more conclusive than that people do differ, and 
will ever differ. What is the use of making people different—of 
having so many beautiful varieties—if all distinctions of family 
and nationality, all peculiar traits, all personal sympathies, yea, all 
things that make even a mother differ from a father, are to be 
blotted out? The very thought of such obliteration—of such blot¬ 
ting out—is horrible! It is repugnant to every finer feeling that 
characterizes the human heart with its God-given love for its own 
home, its own people, and its own country, and its own individual 
identity. 

“But the Bible further reveals the fact that when people die 
they are ‘gathered together with their kindred,’ not with somebody 
else’s kindred. Hence Jehovah tenderly said unto the good old 


248 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Josiah, ‘Behold I will gather thee unto thy fathers.' This was in 
the nature of a consoling promise. Had he been about to be gath¬ 
ered together with foreigners, what solace could there have been? 

“Yes, yes, most certainly, my dear Sister Marshall, you need 
have no fear of being mixed up with people in heaven that you do 
not like, and who don’t Jike you. There is a thousand told greater 
mixture of like and dislike in this world than there will be, or can 
be, in the other. Here even tares and wheat grow together in the 
same field, and sheep and goats run together in the same fold. But 
in the other life there will be a perfect cleavage and separation be¬ 
tween tares and wheat, and sheep and goats—between things that 
are unlike even in any particular of dissimilarity. That there is 
not only a general difference between the Anglo-Saxon and the 
African, but a marked dissimilarity in a hundred particulars, ev¬ 
erybody knows; while a difference in any one particular would be 
sufficient cause for the Anglo-Saxon and the African to live in 
different mansions, in different circles, in different countries. This 
is even the case here. More, yea, much more will it be the case in 
the world to come! 

“The Senegambian chief is not one of your fathers, though 
his children are as dear to him as your children are to you. You 
know that a well-meaning negro knows his place, and has no more 
desire to get out of it than you do to get out of yours. Only the 
disorderly, white or black, have any desire to push themselves on 
people who are not of their own kind. Everybody in heaven is 
^perfectly happy. The leopard never changes his spots, nor the 
Ethiopian his sjdn. The Ethiopian has his ‘own vine and fig tree.’ 
The Bible says every man shall have this. All have their own 
heaven and are happy in it, and can’t be happy anywhere else. Out 
of their own country harps don’t play, but are hung on willows 
where the very winds make them weep for home,—their own Beau¬ 
tiful City, joy of their own world. 

“The negro is happier in his own family than he could pos¬ 
sibly be in your family, and you are happier in your own family 
than in his. Even Jones’s wife is happier in Jones’s home than she 
could possibly be in Smith’s home; and this does not interfere with 
Smith’s wife being happier in Smith’s home than she could be in 
the home of Jones.” 

Here John’s wife cheerily asked of Mrs. Marshall: 

“Have you graduated, Sister Marshall; or do you find it nec¬ 
essary to go to another session ?” 


ON PLATTE CITY CIRCUIT. 


249 


“Yes,” said Mrs. Marshall, shaking Mrs. Counsellor’s hand, 
“I've graduated. Thank God, I now see. I’m really happy. I 
now see that there is a place, a particular place, for every person, 
and every person has his particular place. Why did I never see 
this before? A negro is as good as I am, in his place. Yes, bet¬ 
ter and happier in his place than I could be in his place; and I 
don’t reckon that I’ll be accused oi pride and bragging on myself 
when I say that, at least, I’ll be happier among my own kindred— 
among my own kind of people—than I could possibly be among 
somebody else’s sort of people. And yet I’ll not cherish any hard 
feeling toward the other kinds. Why, why, Brother John, we’ll peti¬ 
tion the bishop to have you as—well—as our teacher forever and a 
day.” 

Now, unless those whose “office it is to drive away heresy” 
shall, like the evil one, cast tares in among the above Gospel wheat, 
it may be said that Sister Marshall went on from the light of the 
first day to the perfect light of the fourth day of a regenerating 
soul, which. light not only brought pleasantness and peace on this 
one not very vital subject, but sun, moon, and stars so illuminated 
her mind and soul that she could experience that there is no night, 
nor need of a candle. 

Hundreds of such subjects as the above were explained by John 
in private talk, while in his pulpit ministrations he expounded and 
explained the Book of Genesis* the Book of Revelation, the Tree 
of Life, and the tree of good and evil, and, above all, explained 
how “all of the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in the Lord 
Jesus Christ.” In fact, all things under his ministration began to 
look new and beautiful. And yet, strange to say, even he, at this 
time, did not fully recognize that the light he was shedding abroad 
in the minds of his people was such as is incident to and which 
ushers in the day of the second coming of the Son of Man. It was 
after he came out of the entire “orthodox” as well as Methodist ec¬ 
clesiastical Babylon, that he recognized, in the light of the fourth 
day, that the second coming of the Son of Man was at hand, even 
like His first coming, without the organized church knowing it; 
as it is written, “As the days of Noe were, so also shall the coming 
of the Son of Man be. For, as in the days before the flood, they 
were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until 
the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood 
came and took them all away. So shall also the coming of the Son 
of Man be.” 


250 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


For years and years the tremendous truth did not shine fully 
through the literal figures of the Word (the clouds of heaven) on 
John’s mind that the whole so-called “orthodox” church world was 
drifting into the same relation to the second coming of the Son of 
Man that the Jewish Church bore to His first coming. 

And yet, had he been wise to discern the signs of the times, 
he might have been relieved of many of the woes that befall those 
that “are with child and that give suck in those days.” Yet, under 
his motto, that they who “follow on to know shall know,” and that 
the Lord “would guide him by His counsel and afterward receive 
him to glory,” John and his good wife never looked back,—never 
felt at ease in a fallen Zion; but continually pressed forward as 
those seeking a country of habitation in which the Prince of Peace 
was the sole Ruler. 

While on this circuit John was ordained as “deacon” by Bishop 
Marvin. It is true that in undergoing this ordination he had some 
scruples of conscience; but he justified his action, or rather his 
submission to being ordained as deacon, under the section and 
article of the Methodist Articles of Religion that he had cited to his 
wife, as stated in Chapter XXIV of this history.' However, by the 
time that another ordination ordeal had to be passed through, not 
only was John farther advanced along the “six days” of re-creation ; 
but even the elders of the church were construing the article in which 
he took refuge from the standpoint of their own traditions, and 
not from what might be established from the plain word of the 
Scriptures themselves. To this singular day John was hastening 
on,—a day in which a mighty ecclesiastical hierarchy distinctly 
refused an appeal from its own traditions to the very words of the 
very God Himself. 

But we will follow John on to his new and last field of labor, 
as well as of love, in the fields of Methodist ecclesiasticism. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


THE CLARKSVILLE CIRCUIT. 


Some Immortals in Friendship’s Temple—“Experimental Religion” — 
Presiding Elder Pritchett—The “Great Dispute” Between Elders Prit¬ 
chett and Sweeny—Sisters Hemphill and Everett as Barometers of “How 
The Battle Is”—John’s Idea of How the Battle Went—The Parable of 
the “Blind Boys” and the “Elephant”—How the Creed-Makers Created 
Several Gods. 


It is now the year 1S69. John, by order of conference, is in 
charge of what is known as the “Clarksville Circuit.” Here he 
met a little more than the usual cordial reception. The Forgays, 
the Oglesbys, the Greens, the Earls, the Hemphills, the Bryans, 
the Roberts, the Downings, the Knights, the Greens, the Smiths, 
the Bradleys, the Beasleys, the Pollards, the Davises, the Terrys, 
the Jamisons, the Turners, and a multitude of outside Gentiles, as 
among the hundred fold brothers and sisters that are to be found 
by those who give up home for Christ’s sake. 

John remained at this field of work two years and gathered 
in several hundred members, and built a parsonage and two 
churches. 

On account of preaching the doctrine that “experimental re¬ 
ligion” consists chiefly in carrying religion into all of the practical 
“experiences” of actual life, such as a horse trade, rendering prop¬ 
erty for taxes, providing for the family, in fact, in carrying relig¬ 
ion into every experience of trade and daily intercourse with all 
the neighbors,—on account of thus making “experimental religion” 
an everv-day experience, instead of a mere legend of the “getting 
of religion” in years gone by at some camp-meeting, or at some 
other one particular place or tick of clock,—for preaching this doc¬ 
trine John was called a “Dry-land Campbellite” by outsiders, and 
for this, among other things, the Elder Monroe accused him of 
‘ heresy.” 

During his first year on the circuit John had as his presiding 
elder, Rev. Joseph H. Pritchett, who perhaps, is still alive. If so, 

(251) 





252 john counsellor's evolution. 

and if he remains the same genial, Christian-spirited man that John 
ever found him to be, then blessed is the people who come under 
his ministration. If dead, the angels have separated from his mind 
the little tares or errors of doctrine in which he innocently and un¬ 
knowingly indulged, and he is among the angels themselves. 

In this year on the Clarksville Circuit a public four days’ debate 
took place between the Presiding Elder Pritchett and a noted “dis- 
puter” or “debater” named Sweeny, who belonged to the “Chris¬ 
tian” or “Campbellite” Disciples. John was chosen as one of the 
moderators, and for four days sat patiently listening to the “differ¬ 
ences* placed on the Scriptures by John Wesley and Alexander 
Campbell. Facing from the rostrum the great audience, he amused 
himself from time to time in noticing the intense partisan expression 
of faces. When Elder Pritchett was making his telling points 
against Elder Sweeny the faces of the Methodists were all aglow 
and the faces of the Disciples were all agloom; and, as a matter 
of course, vice versa. There was a Methodist sister, Mrs. Dr. Hemp¬ 
hill, who had a patrician featured face of such refined and delicate 
mould that it was changed by any gentle zephyr, let alone blast or 
frost, that blew on it. There was also a Disciple sister, wife of the 
preacher at Paynesville, who had an open face, but the features were 
moulded after the pattern of the tribe of Benjamin, who were noted 
slingers of stones at a hair breadth, and left-handed at that. 

After each day’s “discussion,” or rather after each day’s “dis¬ 
pute,” John reported progress to his wife (who would not, or per¬ 
haps could not, attend the “dispute”) by delineating the changes of 
countenance from glow to gloom, or from gloom to glow, that took 
place with the patrician featured Methodist sister and the Disciple 
sister of the tribe of Benjamin; which, to be short about the matter, 
was an alternation between these good sisters from “morning to 
evening” and from “evening to morning” in as regular rotation as 
day and night. All depended on whose “sun”—whose champion— 
had his turn on the floor. 

Great crowds flocked to this debate. At the close of it John’s 
wife asked him what impression the “dispute” had made on him, 
because she was always more anxious about the fruits of a thing 
than about the trimmings. 

“Well,” said John, “you recollect that when the Christ was 
crucified, He had two garments. In John’s Gospel it is said, ‘Then 
the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and 
made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also His coat. Now 


THE CLARKSVILLE CIRCUIT. 


253 


the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They 
said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots 
for it whose it shall be; that the Scripture might be fulfilled which 
saith, They parted my raiment among them and for my vesture 
they did cast lots. These things, therefore, the soldiers did! 

“ ‘The soldiers’ are the theological gladiators, the debaters, the 
athlete ‘disputers’ or contestants for sectarian triumph in ecclesias¬ 
tical arenas. The outer garment is the ‘letter of the Scriptures.’ 
This can be divided and subdivided by the soldier-like disputers, 
and each soldier take a part. ‘These things therefore the soldiers 
did.’ 

“Now,” continued John, “while the outer garment is the letter 
of the Word of God, the ‘coat without seam, woven from the top 
throughout,’ is the spiritual meaning of the Word of God. This 
not all of the soldiers could divide, and therefore they ‘cast lots for 
it.’ That is, none of them knew any more about it than guess, 
or chance, or ‘casting lots,’ which is a game of chance. And,” added 
John with a twinkle in his eye, “ ‘these things the soldiers (disputers 
—Elders Pritchett and Sweeny) did.’ ” 

“Yes, yes,” interposed the good wife, “I expected as much, or 
rather, as little; so you may stop, as I don’t want you to think that 
I am such a dullard as not to see through the whole affair. Isn’t 
it wonderful in what few words the Scripture can tell a whole his¬ 
tory ! Wasn’t it the Swedish seer who said that ‘an angel can con¬ 
vey more ideas in one-word than an earthly speaker can express in 
an all day’s oration ?’ ” 

“Well, you know, darling,” said John, “that, on account of 
loyalty to our Methodist church, up to date I have never read a 
single volume of the great seer’s multitudinous works. But the few 
of his followers whom I have met claim that the light which he 
throws on the Scriptures, as compared with what light is thrown 
on them by what are called the ‘orthodox church commentators,’ is 
as the light of the ‘fourth day’ to the light of the ‘first day’ of cre¬ 
ation. However this may be, it is certain that both Elders Pritchett 
and Sweeny have a part of the Scriptures on each of their sides. 
And it is equally certain that neither of them know anything at all 
about the inner seamless vesture, or spiritual meaning, of the Word 
of God, and just simply ‘cast lots,’- or guessed at it.” 

“I guess,” added the wife, “that when they go into the other 
life and the wise angels take charge of them, these angels will open 


254 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


the inner meaning of the Book and explain all things that are ‘writ¬ 
ten within and without/ as stated in Revelation.” 

“Well/’ said John, “I think that such will be their only chance. 
And I thank God that He has provided such a chance for them; for 
both these men, personally, seem to be good men. I am sure that 
if they would quit debating, or disputing, that they would love each 
other more. And there are the two good sisters. I think, if they 
can be wrought up to the highest tension by earthly preachers, that 
when they are placed under the ministry or ministration of angels 
who have been learning the Scriptures for perhaps ten thousand 
years, these angels will ‘lead them by their counsel and afterward 
receive them to glory.’ Because, looking into their faces for four 
days somewhat fascinated me; and I’d hate to miss either of them 
in the final ‘round-up’ of that great ‘multitude which no man can 
number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues’—of 
Methodists and Mohammedans, of Campbellites and Confucianites, 
of all in every church and out of it who fear God and do the best 
they can!” 

“You say, papa,” said the wife, “that each of the disputants 
got a piece of the outer garment. Now, why is it—what do you 
think is the real cause—that the churches take a* part of a thing, 
and are satisfied with a mere part? Why, some of the churches 
seem to imagine that the part that they claim as their own is the 
whole thing itself. How can people be so blind?” 

“I suppose,” said John, “that they are blinded as to things, be¬ 
cause they are themselves blind. There is a great deal said in 
the Bible about ‘blindness’ and the ‘blind.’ Perhaps, as the great 
Teacher always used parables to teach things, we can get a very 
good idea of how it is that people get wrong ideas about things; 
and, strange as it may appear, go so far as to take part of a thing 
for all of it, by using a little parable, such as Saxe suggested in 
one of his exquisite poems. It is this: In a town in the East called 
the City of ‘Mere Appearances/ there was a private Blinch Asylum 
that had six blind inmates. A circus with a menagerie attachment 
exhibited at this town. The inmates, hearing of the elephant at¬ 
tached to the menagerie, insisted that the superintendent should let 
them go to ‘see the elephant.’ The superintendent asked them, ‘How, 
boys, can you see an elephant?’ To this one of them readily re¬ 
sponded, ‘We can see it by feeling it.’ 

“ ‘Why, certainly,’ said the superintendent, who not only wished 
* to humor the blind boys, but recognized the fact that people see 


THE CLARKSVILLE CIRCUIT. 


255 


most things through their ‘feeling,’ or feelings. ‘Why, certainly, 
we will all go and see the elephant.’ 

“So they went; and, that there might be no confusion, the blind 
boys were permitted, one at a time, to see how the elephant felt. A 
felt first. He put out his hand and it came in contact with the ele¬ 
phant’s side. Very complacently he rubbed along the broad side 
until he was confident that he had seen what an elephant was like. 
He went back to the other boys and said: 

“ ‘Boys, the best and only thing that I can see about the elephant 
is, he is like a house. But perhaps you had better go and see for 
yourselves.’ 

“Whereupon B proceeded to see. Being, like Zaccheus, some¬ 
what short of legs and having no sycamore tree as a step ladder, he 
got hold of the leg of the elephant, and rubbing it up and down, 
soliloquized: 

“ AVhy, A is a fool! Talk about house! Why, an elephant is 
exactly like a sapling—like a small tree!’ 

“So B made his report, that ‘A is a fool, and an elephant is ex¬ 
actly like a sapling!’ 

“So there being a slight difference of opinion between A and 
B—the difference being about as great as between Elder Pritchett 
and Elder Sweeny—C concluded that he would see for himself; 
and, being somewhat taller than B, he got hold of the elephant’s ear, 
which was batting backward and forward in an effort to fan off 
the flies. C seemed a little dazed as he felt the breeze of this fan, 
and he went back to the boys and said: 

“ ‘I’ll tell you, boys, I hate to call people fools, as B did A, but 
I’ll just simply say that from all that I can see, and did see , I’ll em¬ 
phatically say that an elephant is exactly like a lady’s fan.’ 

“D, having his curiosity somewhat aroused, said: 

“ ‘I’ll go and see for myself, as there seems to be such a differ¬ 
ence of opinion between A, B, and C.’ 

“So D did go. He laid hold of the elephant’s tail, and, after 
examining the same, said with seeming surprise and loud enough 
to be heard by the other blind boys: 

“ ‘Why talk about a hquse, and a sapling, and a—a fan! My 
goodness gracious, that any one can say that an elephant ain't just 
like a rope! Why— Well, I’ve just got my opinion of all such!’ 

“So D returned to the bevy of blind ones, and complacently 
smacking his lips, said: 


256 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“ ‘Boys, I’ve got my opinion of what an elephant is, and by 
gum, I’m going to keep it.’ 

“Now E goes forth; and approaching the elephant from a point 
off compass somewhat opposite to that from which D went, he got 
hold of the elephant’s tusk, and after ‘feeling and feeling’ said: 

“ ‘Who ever heard of a rope being so stiff, as stiff as a spear ? 
Why, an elephant is like a soldier’s spear. Nobody but a driveiing 
idiot could say that it is like a house! Bah! Why, C, your talk 
about an elephant being like a lady’s fan is the veriest poking of 
fun at things that I ever heard. There is about as much likeness 
between a lady’s fan and a real elephant as there is between a 
twenty-penny spike nail and a half a yard of dish-cloth. Why, 
Brother B, how could you take a soldier’s spear for a sapling ? My, 
my, my!’ 

“Here F got a little excited, and rushed forward to see about 
things for himself, saying: 

“ ‘Like Job, I’ll see for myself with mine own eyes, and not let 
another see for me.’ 

“So, hurriedly, and excitedly, he grabbed the worming and 
squirming appendage of the elephant, called the snout, which felt 
exactly like a snake. And he had no more than felt the ‘squirm,’ 
than instantly he released his hold, and jumping backward he fell 
over the peg to which the animal was chained and exclaimed: 

“ ‘There has been a nasty job put up on me, unless an elephant is 
like a snake.’ * 

“The keeper, picking him up, assured him that there had been 
no job ‘put up on him,’ but that he had seen a real part of a real 
elephant. 

“Between the ‘blind boys’ there seemed to be a regular Babel, 
—each being as well satisfied that his idea of the elephant was 
right, and the ideas of the other fellows bordered on the veriest 
idiocy, and such t terms were being bandied back and forth among 
them as ‘You’re a fool!’ ‘You’re a knave!’ ‘Idiot!’ ‘Blind as a 
bat!’ ‘Can’t tell a house from a rope!’ 

“And while the advocate of the snake theory didn’t have much 
to say, the pow-wow was only ended by the superintendent exclaim¬ 
ing: 

“ ‘Hold, boys, and I’ll explain how it is that all of you are right, 
but—’ 

“Here the snake champion cried out: 


THE CLARKSVILLE CIRCUIT. 


257 


“ ‘How can all be right? How can the fellow that says the ele¬ 
phant is like a girl’s fan be right, and I be also right, who know the 
elephant is like a squirming snake? I know I’m right!’ 

“The superintendent tried to explain, but A, who had first got 
in his idea that an elephant is like a house, endeavored to clinch 
his position by an attempt at quoting Scripture, and exclaimed with 
a kind of theological shriek iiThis tone: 

“‘House! house!! (—)! Snake! snake!! What concord can 
there be between Belial and Beel-ze-bub? You can’t mix up houses 
with snakes. If you can, then we are all suckers from Suckerdom! ’ 
„ “Here the sister of A, who was on a visit to the Blind Asylum, 
said to her brother: 

“ ‘Brother, let the superintendent explain, and he will show you, 
and show all, that while, perhaps, yqu all are a little hasty, and no 
doubt, as you will certainly admit, a little blind, that really each 
of you has a good idea, not of a whole elephant, but of part of one. 
And by putting all of these parts together, you will get a good idea 
of a whole elephant.’ 1 

“This the superintendent proceeded to do, to the satisfaction of 
all. Now, then, if Sister Hemphill, or Sister Everett, had sug¬ 
gested to Elder Pritchett with his ‘faith alone’ idea of salvation, 
and to Elder Sweeny with his ‘obedience’ to certain church sac¬ 
raments as the ‘only’ way of salvation, and had told them by honest 
searching not of creeds but of Scripture to give the Great Superin¬ 
tendent, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, even the Lord Jesus 
Christ, a chance to explain, then the elders would have been rec¬ 
onciled. But each is blind to what the other has seen—seen by 
the other fellow’s eyes.” 

“I think,” said the wife, “that you are right. And I think 
that your same parable will explain a subject of thousand times 
more weight than the tithing of such ‘mint, anise, and cummin’ as 
‘modes of baptism,’ ‘infant church membership,’ and things that 
people get along very well with, and very well without, for I have 
never seen any very marked difference between the one who \n bap¬ 
tism was applied the water and the one to whom water was applied.” 

“To what weightier matter of law and gospel do you allude?” 
inquired John. 

“Why,” said his wife, “to a matter that not only seems to be 
a weighty matter of law and gospel, but is in fact the very weight¬ 
iest matter, not only of law and gospel, but also of prophet and 
psalmist, and of apostolic epistles, and of apocalyptic revelations, 


258 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


I allude to the subject of the theme of the ‘first and great command¬ 
ment/ as stated by Jesus Himself in Mark, that ‘The Lord our God 
is One Lord/ and as stated in a thousand places in the Scriptures, 
both old and new, ‘besides this one God there is no other/ He being 
‘the First and the Last/ ‘the Alpha and Omega/ ‘the only wise God 
our Saviour/ in whom ‘dwells bodily all the fullness of the God¬ 
head.’ 

“Now, you know that even our Methodist creeds, as the soldiers 
divided up the garments, have divided up the Godhead into—well, 
they say into ‘three persons.’ Why, turn to your Book of Disci¬ 
pline and see exactly what they do divide God up' into.” 

Here John got the Methodist Discipline and read with com¬ 
ment as follows: 

“Chapter I, Section I, after declaring that there is ‘but one liv¬ 
ing and true God/ and describing Him as ‘without body or parts,’ 
concludes by saying, ‘And in unity of this Godhead there are three- 
persons of one substance, power, and eternity,—the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost.’ Section II declares ‘the Son the very and 
eternal God.’ Section IV declares the ‘Holy Ghost very and eternal 
God.’ They fail to say who or what the Father is.” 

“So you see,” said the wife, “of these elements in the Godhead 
called ‘Son’ and ‘Holy Ghost’ they say that such ‘is God,’ and such 
‘is God/ and such ‘is God,’—just as the blind boys said this part 
of the elephant and that part was the elephant. And it seems to 
me that the preachers that preach three distinct persons, and that 
each of these three is ‘God,’ while yet we know that there is but ‘one 
God,’—that these preachers are in the same condition as the blind 
boys. There is one thing that I do know, that they are the blind 
leading the blind. You know you once tried to believe and tried 
to preach this ‘three-person’ doctrine, and you confessed yourself 
that you didn’t understand it. What is not understanding a thing but 
mental blindness?” 

“I confess,” said John, “that such was about the* size of the 
whole subject matter. But you know that I have studied for years 
on this subject, that I examined for over a year continuously the 
list of texts of Scripture that our old newspaper reporter handed 
to me at the State University. Yes, you are right. The preachers, 
or rather the church creed-makers, arrived at the conclusion that 
part of the Godhead was all of it, just as the blind boys did about 
the elephant. The only difference is that the blind boys of the city 
of Mere Appearances had only one elephant; but the creeds have 


THE CLARKSVILLE CIRCUIT. 


259 


a good many Gods. They took such parts as ‘they felt like doing' 
and called them God. Hence they say the ‘Son is God,’ the ‘Father 
is God,’ the ‘Holy Spirit’ is God,—not knowing that it takes all of 
these in ‘One’ to make the ‘only wise God our Saviour,’ to use the 
words of the Apostle Jude, or to make the one ‘Christ Jesus the 
Lord, in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,’ as 
Paul put it in his epistle to the Collossians. 

“In the olden days before there was any written language, 
whatever men desired to preserve of the ideas they cherished was 
expressed by signs or symbols. For instance, in order to convey 
the idea of the power of God a hieroglyphic picture of a lion was 
used ; a lamb was used to express the idea of perfect innocence; a 
snake was used to express the idea of worldly wisdom, and a calf 
to express natural goodness, and so on. In course of time the people 
lost sight of the thing symbolized in the symbol, and begail to wor¬ 
ship lions, lambs, calves, etc., as deities in themselves, just as the 
blind boys of Mere Appearances took one part or element of a 
thing for the whole thing. 

“You know that, after much study, we have arrived at the con¬ 
clusion that everything predicated of the Godhead in all the law, 
and in all the prophets, and all the psalms, and the gospels, and 
epistles, and the Book of Revelation, has reference to some of the 
elements, or features, or parts of the Godhead, of which ‘Christ 
Jesus the Lord’ is the entirety or ‘fullness.’ For Jesus Himself said 
to His disciples that ‘all things must be fulfilled which are written 
in the law of Moses, and in the prophets and in the psalms, con¬ 
cerning me.’ And He further said, ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the 
Beginning and the Ending, who is, and who was, and who is to 
come, the Almighty.’ 

“The Scriptures sometimes, speaking of God, call Him Re¬ 
deemer when they wish to describe His work of redeeming men 
from their bondage to Satan. When they speak of His work ‘of 
saving from sin’ they call Him ‘the Saviour.’ When speaking of 
His creative work, they call this same God ‘the Creator.’ When 
speaking of Him being in the flesh, they call Him ‘Son of Man.' 
When they speak of Him as the ‘only begotten child’ they call Him 
‘Son of God.’ When speaking of His wonderful wisdom, they call 
Him the ‘Wonderful Counselor.’ In speaking of His almighty 
power, they call Him the ‘Almighty God.’ When desiring to de¬ 
scribe Him as the source of all love and of all life,- they call Him 


260 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


the ‘Everlasting Father.’ When they desire to distinguish that 
quality in Him that differentiated Him from the heathen gods of 
war they call him ‘the Prince of Peace.’ 

“Now, the creed-makers of the Dark Ages took that partic¬ 
ular phrase—the ‘Son’—that the Scriptures use to describe the 
especial aspect of the Godhead which has reference to His Humanity 
being begotten of the Infinite and born of woman, and said that 
this ‘Son’ is God, when, in fact, it was the ‘body’ that God ‘had 
prepared,’ in, by, and through which He might ‘manifest Himself 
in the flesh.’ 

So also, these ecclesiastical formulators of church creeds se¬ 
lected one phrase out of the wide nomenclature of the Godhead, to 
wit, ‘the Father,’ and called the ‘Father’ God. So also, mistaking 
an essential element of the Godhead, called the Holy Spirit, for the 
All of the Godhead, they considered the ‘Holy Spirit’ God. These 
creed-makers do not recognize that this ‘One God’ had in His ‘Full¬ 
ness’ not only the elements of the ‘Son,’ but those of the ‘Father’ 
principle, and those of the ‘Holy Spirit’ principle, and also all of 
the features and principles that can be found in a Redeemer, in a 
Saviour, in a Creator, in an ‘Almighty God,’ in an ‘All in All.’ 

“In course of time when there is any beginning made of a 
departure from the Scripture teaching that there is but one God, 
and the churches begin to multiply Lords many and Gods many out 
of each feature or phrase of the Godhead, and make a separate God 
of each separate feature, then they will soon keep multiplying until, 
like the Greeks and the Romans, they may have thousands of deities; 
and, like the heathen of Assyria and of Egypt and of Babylon', may 
have temples under every high tree; by the side of every fountain, 
and in every field, where gods of forest, field, and fountain without 
number are worshiped in their separate godships. Hence you see, 
my darling,” said John, with rising emphasis,—“you see the im¬ 
portance of the ‘first and greatest commandment’ that says, ‘Hear, 
O Israel, the Lord thy God is One God.’ 

“You see why it was that Isaiah, who more especially than 
others was the prophet of the coming Messiah, was so particular to 
say of this one God that He was ‘the Child,’ ‘the Son,’ the ‘Won¬ 
derful Counselor,’ ‘The Almighty God,’ ‘The Everlasting Father,’ 
‘The Prince of Peace,’—using, not the indefinite article ‘a,’ but the 
definite article ‘the,’—‘The God,’ ‘The Father,’—because the proph¬ 
ets knew two things. One was that there is ‘no other,’ ‘no other 


THE CLARKSVILLE CIRCUIT. 


261 


Gocl besides this one God.’ They also knew the proneness of the 
human mind, in its Vain imaginings,’ to multiply unto itself ‘Lords 
many and Gods many.’ ” 

“Yes, now I see,” said the wife. “I’ve wondered why it was', 
that in the law and the gospels, in the prophets and the psalms, in 
the epistles and in the Apocalypse, So much stress was laid on the 
idea that there is ‘only one God.’ I see it all now. I think you told 
me that even you fell into the idea that there were at least two Gods, 
—God tire Father and God the Son,—and used to pray to one of 
these for the sake of the other. Now, if you could be led into such 
a thing, how must it be with the multitude that give one thought 
to spiritual things and ten thousand to carnal affairs, when you, 
seemingly, give ten thousand thoughts to the things of the kingdom 
of heaven where you take one thought as to the things that are to 
be added to such kingdom. In fact, I think that since you entered 
the Methodist ministry you have literally obeyed what the Lord 
said, ‘Take no thought what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, 
or wherewithal shall ye be clothed; for after all these things 
do the Gentiles seek. But seek ye first the 'kingdom of heaven.’ 
Strange, however, as it may appear, we have always had sufficient 
to eat and drink and wear. You say that, if necessary, the ravens 
will feed us. I expect you have mixed up ravens with such real 
people as we found in Brother McFarland at Richmond, Brother 
Clark at Platte City, and Brother Forgay at Paynesville. However, 
it is all the same. A tree is known by its fruit. 

“I tell you, papa,” continued the wife, in a kind of soliloquizing 
tone of voice, “notwithstanding the Bible says, ‘Take no thought 
for the morrow,’ and that ‘sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ 
yet I think that you would better begin to take thought as to how 
you can take the church vows when you are to be ‘ordained elder.’ ” 

“Well,” said John, “you know that the Methodist creed says 
that nothing is binding on the faith of members except it can be 
proved from the Holy Scriptures; and you know that I can prove 
all I believe from them. In fact, I believe only things that I find 
in the Scriptures.” 

“Yes, yes,” said the wife, “but I fear that when it comes to the 
test the church authorities will try you by their church traditions or 
standards, and not by the original standards erected by the Bible 
itself. But don’t let this disturb you. Because we women people, 
like Pilate’s wife and like your mother, have sometimes a kind of 


262 * JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

prescience that, though we can’t explain it, yet has all the force of 
foresight or prophecy. I think you call this prescience ‘the per¬ 
ception of the wayfarer,' don’t you ?” 

“Well, well, well, darling,” said John, with a far-away ex¬ 
pression of both voice and look, “just open up mother’s old Bible 
and see what the first place on the right at which you open up 
says.” 

The wife got the much-marked Bible, and read the first marked 
passage as follows: "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and 
my fortress; my God; in Him will I trust.” 

“And,” continued the wife, “here is another marked passage 
on the same page: ‘Because thou hast made the Lord, even the 
Most High, thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither 
shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall give His 
angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall 
bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. 
. . . With long life will I satisfy him and shew him my salva¬ 
tion.’ ” 

“Well, that’s alL right,” said John. 

“Why, here is another passage marked at another place,” said 
the wife, “that may add a little to the situation. It says that men 
‘reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their 
wit’s end,—then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and He 
bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm; 
so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad. So He 
bringeth them unto their desired haven. Oh, that men would 
praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to 
the children of men.’ ” 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


STRAWS THAT BECOME SAW LOGS. 


Self-Immolation of Preachers—May Lead to What?—Self-Seeking 
and Easy Berths—The Ascending Degrees: Woman, Wife, Mother— 
Bishop Pierce “Preaches the Funeral” of Brother Leeper—Brother Lee- 
per a “Seer”—This Announcement Makes the Whole Conference Shout 
—Would They Shout at the Seership of Swedenborg?—Captain Celsus 
Price—He Gets Mixed Up With Spiritualism—John Explains the Dis- 
orderliness and Dangers of “Spiritualism”—Captain Price Goes to Persia. 


John had just returned from conference at the end of his first 
year’s work on the Clarksville Circuit. Pfishop George F. Pierce, 
who was considered the ablest bishop in the i bounds of Southern 
Methodism at that time, presided at the conference. John’s wife 
asked him what one thing, if any, impressed him more than others 
at the conference, and she added: 

“Did you, papa, discover any particular self-seeking for good 
places among the preachers?” 

To this John replied: 

“With some few of the preachers there seemed to be an ab- 
SQlute consecration to the itinerant work, and an absolute surrender 
of their own will and personality to the will of the bishop, as if the 
bishop were the Christ commissioning and sending out the apostles. 
In fact, the bishop in the matter of the disposal of appointments 
seemed to be about as absolute as the Pope of Rome is in the Rom¬ 
ish hierarchy. I hardly knew at which to be the most impressed, 
the utter abandon in which these preachers surrender their own 
individuality, their own judgment, their ‘choose ye which,’ or ex¬ 
ercise of individual responsibility, their very manhood, seemingly, 
to the manhood of the bishop and his council of elders,—I say I 
hardly know whether to be more impressed by this self-immolation, 
this total surrender by a whole set of men of all their manhood to 
the dictates of another man who, it is supposed, feeds upon the same 
meat from the ‘One’ only Master’s table, that the brethren do; or 

( 263 ) 




264 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

by the utter and self-sufficient assumption of authority exercised by 
the ‘ruling bishop,' or Pope, over those who, like the followers of 
Loyola, willingly submit themselves to his mastership.” 

Here the wife said: 

“How do you think such conduct comports with what Jesus 
says in Matthew, ‘Call no man your father upon earth; for One is 
your Father which is in heaven. Neither be ye called Masters; for 
One is your Master,—even Christ. All ye are brethren ?’ ” 

“Such things are hard to reconcile,” said John, with a refrain 
of “Well, well, well.” 

“Can they be reconciled at all?” queried the wife. “Did not 
Jesus say, when He was warning His followers about this thing 
of one being Master, or Pope, or Bishop, over others, that such 
things were only practiced by the heathen? Because Jesus ex¬ 
pressly said, ‘Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise do¬ 
minion over therp, and they that are great exercise authority upon 
them; but it shall not be so among you/ Now, unless plain words 
plainly teaching one thing can, by some kind of mental metamor¬ 
phism, be juggled into meaning the exact opposite of what they say, 
—unless such tricks of legerdemain can be practiced,—how can popes 
and bishops that ‘exercise authority,' yea, worse, that ‘exercise do¬ 
minion’ over those that Jesus says are all equal brethren,—how can 
such things be without violating the express command of the ‘only 
one Master’ who is not an earthly pope, prince, or bishop?” 

“Well, well, well,” John replied. “In the course of time there 
are a good many things that creep in like a serpent and seduce, 
by one or another fascinating process, even good men frony the 
truth. We must admit that it is quite fascinating to hear a preacher 
say, ‘I have offered myself a living sacrifice upon the altars of my 
church. Do as thou wilt with me’ (not, O God, but) ‘O Bishop.’ ” 

“Yes,” said the good wife, “if they would substitute Christ for 
church, and the Lord Jesus Christ for ‘bishop,’ or pope, then there 
would be something in saying, ‘I offer myself a living sacrifice 
on the altars of Christ. Do as thou wilt with me, O Lord, my 
God, and my Heavenly Father.’ 

“All history shows that there is a good deal of difference be¬ 
tween a mere ecclesiastical hierarchy called a church, headed and 
ruled by a pope or bishop, and Christ Himself; even if Jesus had 
not expressly warned people against the church rulership .business. 
It seems to me that the trend of things, as you say you saw at con¬ 
ference, the absolute and willing subjection of a whole set of men 


STRAWS THAT BECOME SAW LOGS. 


265 


to be ‘ruled over’ by another man, will finally end in the whole 
thing merging into the Romish doctrine of the rule of a pope as 
the vicegerent of God,—yes, as the ‘Father’ of the church.” 

“Well,” said John, “while the self-immolation, the utter abne¬ 
gation of one’s own individual manhood, on the altar of the mas¬ 
tership of another earthly man, was the case with a few, I think 
the majority had a good deal of the love of uppermost rooms and 
chief places, and exhibited to some extent an indecent ‘self-push’ 
for personal promotion to these ‘uppermost rooms and chief places.’ ” 
“How can they do this?” queried the wife. 

“Oh, easily enough,” said John, “I heard a very prominent 
preacher say to another preacher, ‘Woods, how are you fixed?’ 
‘Why,’ said Brother Woods, ‘what do you mean by being “fixed?” ’ 
‘Why,’ replied L., ‘fixed for a good place this coming year.’ Now 
Brother Woods belonged to the self-immolated on the church altar 
class, and asked Brother L. about the ‘fixing’ business. Brother 
L. then enumerated several ways of ‘fixing’ things. You can either 
fix the presiding elder by having him petitioned by influential and 
big-paying private members to have you sent to such and such a 
place, or if you can’t fix the elder who has the ear of the bishop, 
then you can have some influential layman visit the conference and 
have a personal interview with the bishop himself, and show the 
peculiar environments of some particularly fat place, and also your 
peculiar fitness to fit into such environments. Now, this, backed 
up by some dozen letters addressed as ‘private’ to the bishop, will 
about ‘fix’ you in the ‘fix’ that you want. And there are others—” 
Here the good wife, with an abashed looked on her face, broke 
in on John’s “and there are others,” by exclaiming: 

“Do pray, papa, stop. I thought that what you call ‘log-rolling’ 
among the party politicians was bad enough; but this outdoes the 
poor politicians. Because everybody knows that they go into pol¬ 
itics for the ‘pie’ that is in it; but it is really too bad to hear that 
preachers are striving for uppermost places.” 

“Well,” said John, “if we condemn men for letting a ‘master’ 
stick them like pegs in a hole, and condemn those who themselves 
strive to get stuck in a hole, what can we do?” 

“Why,” replied the wife, “condemn both. Because Jesus, 
without any mistake whatever, condemned the pope or earthly 
father idea, and the ruling bishop or earthly ‘master’ idea, and also 
everywhere exhorted his followers each to use his own talent, each 
to ‘bear his own burden,’ each to ‘choose ye’ for himself, each to 


266 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


‘give account of himself,' and to beware of the leaven of those who 
essay to ‘exercise authority and dominion over others.' If you are 
going to remain with the Methodists, why, so far as this pope or 
bishop rulership work is concerned, it appears that the Protestant 
Methodist idea is a little improvement on that of the Episcopal 
Methodist rulership. But, from what I have heard, even the Prot¬ 
estant Methodists have .substituted an elder for a bishop, as the 
Episcopals have substituted a bishop for a pope, and the Catholics 
have substituted the Pope for God Himself on earth.” 

“Well, darling,” said John, “we'll think more and see more, 
perhaps, of this seemingly Babylonish state of affairs. 

“There was another matter,” continued John, “that impressed 
me more, perhaps, than what we have been talking of.” 

“Why,” queried the wise wife, “what was that? I don’t see 
how anything could have impressed any one more oppressively, at 
least, than to see a finely dressed and big salaried ‘master’ lording 
it over his brethren, and these brethren, like devout Romish dev¬ 
otees, losing all of their individuality, and their liberty of choice 
being merged in the will of the ruling elder, bishop, or pope.” 

“Well,” said John, “this other matter was not on the oppressive 
side of the scale, but rather on the cheerful and helpful side of 
things.” 

“Do, prav, then,” said the wife, “let’s hear it if it has a lining 
of light anywhere in it. For I confess that, in the dark ‘evening’ 
that I see approaching, I’ll be thankful for the faintest streak of 
light of a coming ‘morning.’ ” 

“Let me see. How many of these ‘evenings and mornings’ 
have we been through, and how many of the seven are yet to come? 
I think you say we are in the ‘evening and morning’ that’s called 
the ‘third day,’ and I am a little ashamed to confess that, unless the 
sun, moon, and stars which constitute the ‘fourth day’ will soon be 
ushered in, our small stock of charity that has heretofore ‘hoped ail 
things and borne all things’ with a faith that falters not, will soon 
be wasted. However, papa, excuse this seeming despondency, be¬ 
cause whenever I reflect for a moment I know that our ‘little oil 
in the cruse’ and our ‘handful of meal in the barrel’ will never fail 
as long as we trust the Lord and love each other, which we now 
do and have always done,—and I know we will continue to do. Be¬ 
cause you know, since the light of the ‘first morning’ showed us 
who the Lord is, that it is no trouble to love and trust Him; and 
as for loving each other, why, John, I love you better than ever, and 


STRAWS THAT BECOME SAW LOGS. 


267 


I feel that you love me better than you did when I was your mere 
sweetheart; because then I was only a young woman, but now I 
am a wife and a mother. And you know that a wife is better than 
a mere woman, and a mother is better than a mere wife. So I am 
happy that I am all three, and I begin to see what the Bible meant 
in speaking of the Lord—that He is ‘all in all.’ However, let some 
raven come in to the help of our widow of Zarephath’s ‘cruse and 
cake,’ so that our ‘handful of meal in the barrel shall not waste,’ 
neither our ‘little oil in the cruse’ fail ‘until the day that the Lord 
sendeth rain upon the earth.’ You know how to ‘spiritually dis¬ 
cern’ what I say. Don’t think that I am much afraid of actual meat 
and bread giving out.” 

“Well, then,” said'John, “I’ll relate a thing that took place at 
conference, that will, perhaps, replenish a ‘lee-tle bit’ our ‘cruse of 
oil,’ or love, and our ‘cake of meal/ or wisdom. 

“You recollect a brother preacher whom we met at the Weston 
Conference, named Leeper. At that time he was not expecting to 
live long, and was exceedingly spiritually minded. In fact, the 
spheres and atmospheres of the other world seemed then to be gath¬ 
ering around him. He was exceedingly gentle in manner and lov¬ 
able in spirit. During the year he died, and at the conference Bishop 
Pierce preached his ‘funeral.’ In the course of the sermon the 
bishop said a thing or two that made the whole conference alter¬ 
nately weep and shout for joy. The parts of the sermon that caused 
this weeping and shouting for joy were when the bishop said: 

“ ‘For days and nights and for weeks before Brother Leeper 
died he had some extraordinary Christian experience. His spirit¬ 
ual eyesight seemed, like that of Paul and Stephen, to be opened. 
He saw and mentioned by name many of the loved ones that had 
died in his family and out of his pastoral flocks and gone into the 
world above. There he seemingly was in converse with them as 
familiarly as if they were still on the earth. He frequently said to 

those at his bedside, ‘Don’t you see Brother -, or Sister -?’ 

mentioning particular names of departed loved ones; and he seemed 
surprised that his bedside friends did not see them as he did. Not 
only was his spiritual eyesight opened, but his spiritual ears, or 
hearing, and he frequently said to those attendant at his side, ‘Oh, 

isn’t that beautiful, beautiful singing. Brother - is leading the 

singing as he used to do in the old Chillicothe Church choir. Oh, 
what music. Oh, wife, don’t you hear it? It is like the murmur of 
many waters mingled with the sweet sighing of winds off of South 
Sea spice islands/ ” 





268 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“The good bishop enumerated perhaps twenty things that Brother 
Leeper saw and heard from time to time during the last weeks of his 
life on earth, which he called ‘being on the Mount of Transfigura¬ 
tion/ and being like the beloved Apostle John when he saw ‘windows 
in heaven opened' as described in Book of Revelation, and looked 
in and saw so many heavenly things. He spoke of Paul being caught 
up into the heavens while yet in the body, and of Jacob seeing angels 
descending arid ascending on what is called Jacob's ladder, and said 
that Brother Leeper was tasting of the same things of the world to 
come as did good old Jacob and John and Paul. This made the 
other life look so real that all the preachers shouted with joy; and 
I confess that, amid all dead things of materialism that I saw on all 
sides, this opening of the spiritual sight and hearing of the good 
Brother Leeper, as described by Bishop Pierce, was quite refresh¬ 
ing to me, and perhaps made the most pleasant and powerful im¬ 
pression on me of anything and all the things combined that took 
place at the conference. I wish you had been there to hear the 
eloquent Bishop Pierce describe this Mount of Transfiguration, which 
he said ‘the Scriptures as well as Brother Leeper’s actual experience 
showed that it was possible for men to ascend into while yet on 
earth in the body.’ " 

“I am glad that the bishop preached such a sermon,” said 
“Mrs. Clara,” or “clear of vision,” as John sometimes called her. 
‘‘Because it will keep the presiding elders from accusing you of 
heresy and spirit-rappingism when you preach, not only the possi¬ 
bility but the actual fact of men on earth having their spiritual eye¬ 
sight opened. « 

“I think the very best sermon you preaph is the one that some 
of the preachers say is heresy and ‘spirit-rappingism.’ ” 

“To what particular sermon do you allude?” queried John. 

“Why, the one in which you take the Scriptural position that 
man is a spirit, or spiritual being, in contradistinction to being a 
mere animal, or sensual fleshly being, and that, as a spirit, while on 
earth he is merely clothed with a fleshly body, like God who pre¬ 
pared a body of the seed of Abraham in which He took up His abode, 
and, while dwelling on earth in this earthly temple of his body, was 
called ‘God manifest in the flesh.’ In this same sermon you show 
that it is possible, as the bishop showed in the case of Brother Lee¬ 
per, it is not only possible, but is frequently the case, that men have 
their spiritual senses opened and see and hear things in the spiritual 
world with their spiritual eyes and ears. You know that when you 


STRAWS THAT BECOME SA*\V LOGS. 


269 


preached this sermon, Brother Downing and Brother Pryor, and I 
believe Brother Thompson, accused you of being a ‘spirit-rapper’ 
and a Swedenborgian. So, it appears that if you are a spirit-rapper 
Brother Deeper and Bishop Pierce are such! Have you told 
Brothers Downing, Pryor, and Thompson about the bishop’s great 
annual conference sermon?” 

“Well, no,” said John. “It was to be published in the St. Louis 
Christian Advocate, by request of conference, and I suppose that they 
will all see it.” 

Just then there came up to the parsonage gate a very distin¬ 
guished-looking young man. As was his custom when visitors came, 
j ohn got up from the porch where he and his wife were sitting and 
started to the gate to meet the visitor, remarking: 

“I really believe it is my old University friend, Celsus Price, the 
son of General Sterling Price! I’ll go and meet him.” 

Sure enough, the visitor, aristocratic in bearing and with the 
features of a regular Southern patrician, was Captain Celsus Price. 
Neither John nor his wife had met “Celsus,” as they called him, 
since the days at Columbia University. 

For four years he had been on his father’s military staff as aide- 
de-camp along with Major Mellon and Drury Pulliam, of Texas, 
also officers on his father’s staff. After the war he and his father 
had embarked in the commission business at St. Louis. His father 
died the year before. Drury Pulliam was killed in “Price’s Raid” 
in Missouri in 1864, and Major Mellon and Celsus were still in the 
commission business in St. Louis. Captain Celsus was up in Pike 
County seeing after the tobacco crop in the interests of his house, 
and hearing that his old* University friends, John Counsellor and 
Clara Bingham, his wife, lived at the Clarksville parsonage, had 
called to see them. He was received by John and his wife as though 
no four years’ bloody chasm had ever been rolling between them. 
John’s wife, with a two-months-old babe in her arms, followed John 
down the walk to greet the visitor at the gate. The babe had not as 
yet been named, and on John and his wife shaking hands with Cap¬ 
tain Celsus Price, the wife said to the captain, as by inspiration of the 
moment, kissing the babe : 

“'Captain Celsus, this is the namesake of your cousin Em,— 
Emma Childs.” 

Among other things Captain Celsus told John about the time 
when Judge Counsellor was prisoner in his father’s army. He said 
there was a desperate man named Charley M., who was a camp- 


270 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

follower or in some way connected with his father's army. During 
the war Charley killed over thirty men in private broils. Just after 
the battle of Lexington he had killed an old man named White for 
some supposed outrage committed by White on Captain Lightner, a 
kinsman of Charley. It is said that he was hung to a lamp-post 
out at Cheyenne by some of his own comrades just after the war. 
This Charley seemingly had a grudge against Judge Counsellor. 
‘‘And it came, to my ears," said Captain Celsus, "that he wished to 
kill your father. I at once sought him out and told him what I 
had heard, and said to him, and clinched what I said with one of our 
old University idiomatics, spelled ‘D—n me, if I don’t!' that, if a 
hair of your father’s head was hurt I would hold him personally re¬ 
sponsible for it; and if Judge Counsellor was killed I would kill the 
man that did it, or kill any man that ever said he would do so. I 
got my father to tell Charley the same thing. My father thought 
a great deal of you and Cousin Em, and told me a dozen times how 
you were affected on the steamboat ‘Sunshine’ at the woodyard land¬ 
ing between Jefferson City and Booneville. My father said that as 
soon as the battle of Lexington was over he would release and send 
your father home, as he was not making war on non-combatants. 
This, you know, he did.’’ 

Here the good wife said: 

“John, you and Captain Price turn for a while from the things 
of war, and become little children again and play with this little babe, 
and I’ll take Ginsy (the nurse) and, in the phraseology we learned 
among our Northern Methodist sisters, I’ll ‘prepare tea,’ or what 
3 r ou two might call ‘hash up a little hash for supper.’ ’’ 

Now, the good wife, who previous to her marriage with John 
had never cooked a meal, had soon learned the marvelous tact as a 
cook of seemingly creating something out of nothing, and John 
was never ashamed, on notice or without notice, of inviting guests, 
even hungry as well as ascetical ones, to her table. 

The supper being over and all sitting out on the porch in the 
deep twilight, Captain Price said to John : 

‘‘John, I hear that you are somewhat learned about what some 
call ‘spiritual subjects,’ and I want to ask you a question." 

To this John replied : 

‘‘Since my mother died in 1857 I have given a good deal of 
thought to such matters, and since Em died in 1862 I have scarcely 
thought of any other sort of subjects. In fact, I have made a very 
serious study of all Bible things. But I confess I am still far from 


STRAWS THAT BECOME SAW LOGS. 


271 


having full light on the subject. Yet I think I am in the light of the 
‘first day/ and if your question appertains to the plane of things in 
that light I may readily answer it. What is it ?” 

“It is this/’ said the captain, “do you believe in the possibility 
of departed people, spirits or whatever you call them, being able to 
take possession of what are called ‘mediums,’ and through these me¬ 
diums to talk to people on this earth ? Now, let me have a fair and 
square answer to this fair and square question; because I assure you 
that I ask it in the utmost good faith and for the best of purposes.” 

“Yes, yes,” answered John, “I not only believe in the possi¬ 
bility of such things, but in the actual fact that such things are now 
being done in all parts of the world, and, are not only now being done, 
but have been going on from the days of Samuel and the Witch of 
Endor, and from the more remote days of Job’s time, when Job 
said, ‘A spirit passed before my face and the hair of my flesh stood 
up,’ down through the days when Jehovah was on earth and cast out 
of men ‘all manner of spirits,’ as related in all the four Gospels, down 
through the apostolic times when, as related of Paul and Silas, ‘It 
came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with 
a. spirit of divination met us,' which brought her masters much gain 
by soothsaying.’ This girl so ‘possessed with a spirit,’ it is related, 
‘followed Paul many days,’ and ‘Paul being grieved, turned and said 
to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come 
out of her. And he cariie out the same hour.’ This was followed by 
the statement that, when the ‘girl’s master saw that the hope of their 
gains was gone,’ they caused Paul and Silas to be accused and cast 
into jail, where took place the further ‘spirited’ transaction of the 
foundations of the prison being shaken and all the doors of the prison 
being opened, and every one’s bonds being loosed. Certainly, my 
dear captain, no man can believe the Bible without believing in, not 
only the possibility, but the record of thousands of actual occur¬ 
rences, that spirits ‘obsess’ people, and through these ‘obsessed’ 
people talk to men on this earth.” 

Here Captain Price said: 

“And if a man can believe what he sees with his own eyes and 
hears with his own ears, as I have done, he must believe with Solo¬ 
mon that there is ‘nothing new under the SU14’ and ‘what has been 
will be again,’ and that such things as spirits obsessing people is still 
extant. Because I am going to tell you and Cousin Clara some¬ 
thing that actually took place with me, and it is this: Major Mellon 
was on my father’s staff during the war as commissary. Also there 


272 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


was a young man from Texas on the staff. Cousin Clara knew him 
at the University the year after you graduated, when she had just 
come back from Europe. His name was Drury Pulliam.” 

“Oh, yes, I knew him well,” said Clara. “He was a beau of my 
most devoted friend, Laura Rollins. He was quite a high-roller, as 
I recollect. Laura told me that he saved her father’s life, I believe, 
at the Centralia massacre.” 

“Yes, I’ve heard him speak of that,” said the captain. “Even 
a rebel guerrilla has a tender spot in his heart. Drury was greatly 
in love with Laura. However, to my story, which is not a romance, 
but a solemn fact. Poor Drury was killed during my father’s great 
raid in Missouri in 1864. He and I were the most devoted of friends, 
from 1859 at the Lhnversity all through the war to the day of his 
death. Now, Major Mellon is a ‘spiritualist.’ For years he insisted 
on me attending one of the ‘spiritualistic seances.’ For a long time 
I told the major, in not very polite language at times, that I’d have 
nothing to do with such d—n nonsense; for I was really vexed at 
the idea of such a splendid man as Major Mellon believing such 
things. Finally one Sunday evening about a month ago the major 
called at my rooms at the Planters House, and insisted that for once 
I go with him to call upon a most noted medium, assuring me that 
she was a perfect lady and a most wonderful medium, being the re¬ 
fined daughter of an old ex-Confederate friend. 

“For years I had known Major Mellon, and knew him to be 
a perfect gentleman and a most intelligent man. My father always 
trusted him implicitly where millions of dollars and thousands of 
lives were at stake. Every officer and private in Price’s army will 
say what I say of the major. So, more on account of personal friend¬ 
ship than for any other reason, I went with him to the Sunday even¬ 
ing ‘seance.’ Now, John, don’t you and Clara think that L am 
crazy when I say to you that the spirit of Drury Pulliam took pos¬ 
session of that medium and through her tongue and voice talked 
to me just exactly as he used to do through his own mouth, using 
the exact tone of voice (which was one peculiar to him) and the 
exact kind of words that he always used' when he was on earth. In 
fact, if it had been Drury Pulliam himself, he could not have spoken 
in his own tone of v^ice and with his peculiar stilted words more 
naturally than did this medium for him. And he talked of things 
of which no one on earth excepting us two ever knew a thing about! 
Now, I’ll say to you on the honor of a gentleman that what I have 
stated are facts, which Major Mellon will confirm word for word. 
Now what do you think of the matter?” 


STRAWS THAT BECOME SAW LOGS. 


278 


“Well,” replied John, “as I stated to you in the beginning, I 
have no doubt of what you say as a fact. There is one thing, how¬ 
ever, about which you and I may radically differ. It is that, while 
I admit, yes, know, that spirits always did, and always will, take pos¬ 
session of certain susceptible people who court and permit such ob¬ 
session, yet I think such intercourse with the spiritual world exceed¬ 
ingly disorderly and dangerous. And while for over twenty years 
I have believed in the possibility and fact of spirits obsessing people 
as they did in Bible days, yet at the same fime I have believed that 
such obsession is disorderly and dangerous. I have never attended 
a spiritual seance, and have always advised people not to permit 
themselves to consult those who have familiar spirits of divination. 
When this spiritual medium business first came about I read a work 
on it by W. B. Hayden, of Portland, Maine, in which he showed all 
of the details as well as the exceeding dangers and disorderly pro¬ 
ceedings involved in obsessing and using people as mediums. Since 
that I have never had even a desire to comply with the request of 
those who are described by the Prophet Isaiah, as in the latter days 
saying: ‘Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto wiz¬ 
ards that peep and mutter.’ If you will send and get Mr. Hayden’s 
book it will tell you more from both scientific and Scriptural stand¬ 
points than I could tell you in an all night’s talk.” 

“Why,” said Captain Price, “don’t you believe that Swedenborg 
told the truth when he claimed that he had his spiritual eye-sight 
and hearing opened, and saw on the spiritual side of the Bible, as 
well as on the letter, and was thus enabled to ‘spiritually discern’ the 
Scriptures ?” 

“There is a difference between a ‘seer’ and a ‘wizard possessed 
of a familiar spirit,’ ” replied John. “Yes, as vast a difference as 
there is between Paul and Peter and John, who saw things in the 
spiritual world, and the girl out of whom Paul cast the spirit of 
divination. A ‘seer’ never seeks to set. For good purposes the 
Lord sometimes-opens the eyes of people on earth, as He did with 
the Assyrian boy, as related in the old Bible, and with Paul when 
he was caught up to the third heaven, and with the beloved Peter, 
James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration, and with John, 
the Apocalyptic seer, who, on the Sabbath day, saw a door open in 
heaven, and saw seven golden candlesticks, and seemingly for a long 
period saw angels and dragons and beasts and horses, the rise and 
fall of great kingdoms, and finally, saw a whole new heaven and a 
new earth and a ‘holy city coming down from God out of heaven upon 
10 


274 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


s 

the earth.' Yes, Swedenborg might, like some of old, have had the 
gift of seership; but if he did, he certainly never sought it. It was 
given to him as a gift of the Lord for good purposes. And I am 
told that his followers say that his seership is proved by the test 
that Isaiah laid down in testing whether one is a wizard or a seer of 
God, by an appeal to ‘the law and the testimony;’ and that he may be 
tested by the standard laid down by the Apostle John in his first 
epistle, when he said, ‘Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the 
spirits whether they be of Godand says that you may know whether 
they be of God, ‘Hereby know ye the spirit of God; for every spirit 
that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.’ 
And I understand that Swedenborg is the only theologian, or ex¬ 
plainer of the Scriptures, since the days of John and Paul who un¬ 
equivocally teaches that there is but one God, and that the Lord Je¬ 
sus Christ is that one God, and that, besides this only one wise God 
there is no God—that in Christ God was ‘manifest in all of his full¬ 
ness in the flesh.' This being so, Swedenborg is differentiated from 
the wizards who have familiar spirits, all of whom deny the God- 
ship of Christ, as Paul and John and James and Thomas, who ac¬ 
knowledged Christ as ‘my Lord and my God,’ ‘differ from the witch 
of Endor or from the spirits that deny that Jesus Christ is come in 
the flesh.’ However this may be, the fact remains that ‘seeking 
wizards who have familiar spirits’ is disorderly, as I think. Be¬ 
cause nearly all of the ‘spirit-rappers’ deny in the long run that there 
is any God at all, while Swedenborg teaches, with more power .and 
more light than all the legions combined, not only the absolute ne¬ 
cessity for a personal God, but shows in a most marvelous light how 
the Lord Jesus Christ is the First and the Last, the only wise God 
of heaven and earth, ‘in whom dwells all the Godhead bodily,’ as all 
the apostles preached.” 

“Then, you think,” replied Captain Price, “that it was really the 
spirit of Drury Pulliam that talked to me through the St. Louis me¬ 
dium ?” 

“Certainly I do,” said John. “From what you tell me of Drury, 
he was a high-roller and had very little regard for the laws of order, 
except so far as these laws tallied with his whims and caprices.” 

“Well, ves,” said the captain, .“that, I must confess, is about the 
size of it. And there happened a thing the next Sunday that con¬ 
firms me in your view, that is, that it is only ‘disorderly spirits’ that 
seek to obsess people. Another medium tried to make me believe that 
my father, through her, was talking to me. But it did not talk like 


STRAWS THAT BECOME SAW LOGS. 


275 


my father, or use his peculiar kind of language, and I did not believe 
it was my father, though it told me of several things that no one ex¬ 
cepting father and me knew anything about. What do you think of 
this?” 

“Why,,certainly,” said John, “it was not your father. He was 
and is yet an orderly man, and will do nothing against the laws of 
order, and the law of order of heaven is that when people depart from 
the earth they ascend higher and higher through all the planes of the 
world of spirits until they reach their home in the heavens which are 
above the earth and above the world of spirits. Hence, you see by 
common perception that those who are descending and coming down 
to earth again are in inverted states of order, as well as of life. Up¬ 
ward is heaven ! Downward is hell! This is universally recognized 
by all men. When you get home, please send for Mr. Hayden’s 
‘The Dangers of Modern Spiritualism.’ It is worth its weight in 
gold.” . > 

“Well,” said Captain Price, “most preachers deny even spiritual¬ 
ism as a fact; but so far as I am concerned they might deny it as a 
fact till Doomsday, and I would tell them that I know it is a fact. 
But, as to what you say, I am not able to deny that it is disorderly. 1 
believe that you are right. Mere bald-headed denials don’t count, 
but a candid admission of a fact with an explanation of it satisfies 
rational men, and is the only thing that will or ought to satisfy them.” 

It was now quite late. John pressed his old college friend to 
stay all night with them, but the captain said that the Keokuk and 
St. Louis packet Warsaw was due at eleven o’clock that night, and he 
must go back to St. Louis. Just then the hoarse but sonorous whistle 
of the packet boat was heard up the river, and Captain Celsus Price, 
with that ease and grace that characterize the old-time Southern 
gentleman, bade John and his wife a friendly good-bye and shake of 
hand, and kissed Horace and Allie and little Cousin “Em,” and went 
off the parsonage porch with John accompanying him to the gate. 
This was the last time on earth he was ever seen by the Counsellor 
family. 

Soon after a rich aunt, Mrs. Garth, of Howard County, Mis¬ 
souri, died and left Celsus and his brother Heber a fortune, which 
these brave, bright sons of a brave old father used in a long sojourn 
in Persia for the study of the wonderful lore of the oriental occult 
sciences. It is very probable that, had Captain Celsus sent for and 
read Mr. Hayden’s book which John had recommended, his long trip 
to the mystic Mountains of the Moon would have been saved. In 


276 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Hayden’s book he would have learned more of the ancient magic arts 
of wizard and of the Middle Age divination of the Servian magi and 
of the latter-day disorderly procedures of the mediums than he could 
ever learn from the dreamy adepts of oriental occultism, or from a 
score of Madame Blavatskys. 

Things herein related are facts,—real facts about real persons. 
We shall only add that under no circumstances can any spirit obsess 
any person unless such person is willing and seeks to be obsessed. 
Before the incarnation of Jehovah in the Christ in the flesh this was 
not so. Men then were unwilling captives to all kinds of disorderly 
spirits; but the sphere that Jehovah spread abroad throughout the 
realms of the human plane on earth “cas^ out” all such spirits, and 
they now have no power over man except such as men voluntarily 
seek to give them. 

Oh, what a blessed thing is this one particular of the redeeming 
of men from the bondage of devils. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


SEVERAL PREACHERS AND POINTS OF DOCTRINE. 


Andrew Monroe, Presiding Elder—His Idea of the Saints, and of 
“Ancient Landmarks”—A Sam Jones Blatherskite Who Preaches “De¬ 
monology”—John’s Counter Doctrine of Angel-ology—A Saloon-Keeper’s 
Reception in the Other World, and How the Angels Minister to and 
Judge Him—The Ministration of Angels—The Good Wife Prevents a 
Threatened Collision With the Presiding Elder—Regeneration—A 
“Campbellite” Brother Called to Explain “For Christ’s Sake.” 


During John’s second year’s work on the Clarksville Circuit his 
presiding elder was a venerable minister, the Rev. Andrew Monroe. 
Brother Monroe was the most well-meaning and in some respects the 
most badly mistaken of men in his abstract doctrinal tenets. He was 
a great stickler for the traditional doctrines of his church. He hon¬ 
estly believed that these embraced and proclaimed all of the fullness 
of what once and for all was “delivered to the saints,” the Methodists 
being the “saints” and the “delivery” that was made being such as 
is contained in the articles of religion printed in the Methodist Book 
of Discipline, and in the disquisitions and diatribes concerning the 
same delivered by Wesley, Watson, Fletcher, and ether Methodist 
theologians. Everything that Moses said in the law, everything that 
David ever said or sung in psalms, £very word of wisdom that Solo¬ 
mon paraphrased in proverbs, everything that Seer or prophet ever 
foresaw or prophesied, everything that John the Baptist preached in 
the wilderness or Jesus preached in the temple, everything that the 
apostles preached or practiced, everything seen, heard, or portrayed 
in that great apocalyptic cyclorama in which the doors of heaven were 
opened, and angels were the preachers,—yea, everything past, pres¬ 
ent, and future, appertaining to the kingdom of heaven, or to its 
counter kingdom of hell,—with Brother Monroe, all these things had 
to be considered in the light of what the Methodist Discipline said 
about them, all had to be judged after the wisdom of Wesley and 
Watson, all had to repose in a Methodist bed and cover themselves 

( 277 ) 





278 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


with Methodist coverlets; and any stretching of weary or growing 
limbs beyond this bed was forbidden. The limbs had to be lopped off 
to suit the bed, instead of the bed made larger to suit the growing 
limbs of children made under the law of an endless growth of an 
endless life! 

. Strange as it may seem, in such dreams, such fantasies do even 
good men sometimes indulge. Some, instead of calling such indul¬ 
gences “phantasms,” call them “believing lies and being damned,” or 
greatly damaged in both spirit and usefulness of life. Yet Brother 
Monroe did this thing—the very thing that the Jews did, although 
they did not know what they were doing, when they judged Jesus 
from the standpoint of their own traditions, instead of from the 
standpoint of the Law and Prophets. 

Among politicians Brother Monroe would be classed as a “Bour¬ 
bon who never forgets any old thing of Bourbon family history, nor 
ever learns any new thing.” Brother Monroe never learned any new 
thing of Him “who sits on the throne and proclaims, Behold I make 
all things new.” 

Strange to say, there were many of such kind in the days of 
the first coming of the Son of Man; and prophecy, as well as actual 
observation of things right under our noses, shows that many such 
actually exist in the churches in this the day of the second coming 
of the Son of Man. 

However, John continued to grow in both the grace and knowl¬ 
edge of God, and continued to bring out of the Scriptures things 
both new and old. Among the new truths—at least new to Metho¬ 
dist and other “orthodox” pulpits—was this, that “the resurrection” 
is the raising of the man himself from the earthly life to the heavenly 
life, and that this raising up or resurrection takes place, not at the 
end of the world, but in the third day after the death of the body, just 
as stated by the Prophet Hosea :* “After two days will He revive us ; 
in the third day will He raise us up and we shall live in his sight.” 

On “experimental religion” John preached that all of “experi¬ 
mental religion” did not consist in feeling good and crying and shout¬ 
ing at a camp meeting; but that it must be carried into such every-day 
experiences as a horse trade. 

Strange to say, the preaching of the above two things caused 
him to be accused of “heresy,” or “heterodoxy,” or at least of not 
being “orthodox,” while, as matter of fact, he both entertained and 
preached doctrines concerning the Godhead, and the doctrine that 
the Scriptures and not the men who wrote them were inspired, and 


SEVERAL PREACHERS AND POINTS OF DOCTRINE. 


279 


the doctrine of* the ministration of angels,—all of which doctrines 
are about as different from the traditions of present-day so-called “or¬ 
thodoxy” as the original doctrines or commandments of God were 
different from the traditions of the Jews. 

Fortunately, however, for the church authorities, they did not 
accuse John of heresy on his views about the Godhead and the “Scrip¬ 
tures,” but accused him of want of orthodoxy on the two things above 
mentioned, which are not of much vital importance. When the day 
comes that any church calling itself Christian takes issue with what 
John believed and preached about the Lord Jesus Christ being the 
only wise God our Saviour, then that Church will fail on a rock that 
will grind it to pieces. Providentially for the present, the “orthodox” 
churches neither affirm nor deny that “there is but one God, and 
that the Lord Jesus Christ is that one God.” They hold it as a 
“mystery,” and bv doing this do not confirm themselves in the awful 
sin of again denying and rejecting the Lord in “whom dwells all 
the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” 

It is true that in their believing and preaching about the Godhead 
as a “mystery,” they are in a Babylon of confusion and spiritual 
drunkenness. Yet, if not called out of this Babylon during this life, 
all of those who really are in good of life will be called out by the 
angels in the judgment that takes place in the world to come. 

The scope of this work will permit only a brief statement of 
John’s belief about the Godhead, the Holy Scriptures, and the minis¬ 
tration of angels. Perhaps as to the latter subject the matter can 
be the better illustrated by an occurrence. 

There was a kind of Sam Jones blatherskite preaching through 
the country as an “evangelist,” who used to relate what will illustrate 
the “orthodox” idea of the reception in the other world of wicked 
people. The said Sam Jones, so-called evangelist, related as a mat¬ 
ter of fact the following incident: 

In Georgia there lived a good, pious father who had a son who 
enlisted in the Confederate Army. This boy was a quiet, orderly, 
dutiful son and neighbor. In one of the great battles on the Chick- 
ahominy Swamps the boy was badly wounded. He was placed in a 
cabin on the edge of one of the great swamps, and lingered on for 
weeks and months. His father was notified and came up from Geor¬ 
gia to nurse his boy. The father was a strict church member and 
very austere, while the boy was not a church member, but, taking 
after his mother, was a very amiable and kind-hearted sort of an 
outside Samaritan. Winter came. The boy still lingered, and the 


280 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


lather gently warned him about being “baptized and joining the 
church.” This the boy refused, saying such things could make him 
no better,—that he was going to die and had no need of earthly 
priests with their earthly baptism and earthly churches, and that he 
would trust the High Priest above. 

The father grew morbid, and as a matter of course was in a 
fit frame of mind to conjure up any morbid and horrible thing of 
mental illusion. One winter night the father laid in a lot of dry 
wood for fire. The boy lay upon the bed, and the father, after build¬ 
ing up a fire, lay down on a cot near the bedside of his boy, fell asleep, 
and had the following delirious illusion of mind : He saw the Devil, 
who looked like a sort of human beast with cloven hoof and lizard¬ 
like tail. This devil came in through a crack in the door at the foot 
of the bed and anxiously looked around him. He then got upon 
the foot of the bed and nervously looked about him again. Then he 
got on the feet of the boy; then walked cautiously up his legs and 
got upon his breast and sat down there. Just at this time the boy’s 
soul, or spirit, jumped out of his mouth, and with a loud shriek, ran 
but through the crack in the door into the winter night with the devil, 
also shrieking, close at his heels. The chase continued, both bov 
and devil shrieking and screaming, until the sounds tiied away far 
down in the mud and mire of the swamp. 

The father then awoke,—the boy had really died. This Sam 
Jones evangelist (of diabolism and delusion) related the above as a 
real occurrence, and used it to show how “bad” people are ushered 
into and received in the other world. 

John, on the other hand, was used to illustrate such things about 
as follows: 

Anheuser Jones is a saloon-keeper. Like many other saloon¬ 
keepers, he is not altogether bad. He is a kind husband, a good 
neighbor, and an orderly citizen. He has conscientious scruples about 
the saloon business and often tries to quit it. But he has a family. 
He has no other way of making a living. He often wishes that he 
had some other way,—often promises his wife and some good Chris¬ 
tian women that he will quit the business as soon as he can. In this 
state of mind he dies. The angels (not devils) “take charge of 
him,” for God is the same in every world. When people come into 
this world through birth such angels as mothers and doctors and 
those who love little babes have charge of them. So also when 
people (good or bad, for God lets his sun and rain come to all alike) 
go into the other world through resurrection, the very kindest of 


SEVERAL TREACHERS AND POINTS OF DOCTRINE. 


281 


angels take charge of them. They take Jones to their homes and 
do all things possible to separate and save any little wheat that may 
be found among the tares in his field of life. These angels do all 
that is possible to find, amid a great deal of hay, dross, and stubble, 
any little silver that may be worth the saving. These good angels, 
in the great mass of heterogeneous materials look for that little seed 
of the kingdom of heaven which, though “the least,” may under their 
tender ministrations become the greatest of all things in Jones’s 
life. From day to day, from week to week, from year to year, if 
necessary, they keep Jones with them in their beautiful homes and 
their schools of instruction, furnishing everything without money 
and without price, and try and try, until, if possible, they succeed in 
strengthening Jones’s bruised reed of life and fanning the smoking 
flame of love for good things that had been well-nigh quenched in 
the murky atmosphere of his saloon surroundings on earth. 

These ministering angels are not only more intent on saving the 
remnants, of saving the wheat, the silver hidden in the rubbish, the 
bruised reed, the most extraordinarily least seed of the kingdom of 
heaven to be found anywhere in the mass of Jones’s bad life,—in 
this effort to save these angels are not only possessed of a greater love 
than any earthly mother ever had to save the feeble and flickering 
life that shows any sign of itself in the pulse or in the eyes of her 
sick little child; but they are as much wiser than earthly mothers in 
saving life as an angel is wiser than poor weak mortals on earth. 
“When my father and mother forsake me, thou, O Lord, wilt take 
charge of me.” And nothing, no, nothing in heaven or earth, can 
keep these ministering angels from saving Jones except Jones him¬ 
self. If the ruling love of Jones’s life is such that he prefers the com¬ 
pany and teachings of these ministering spirits, or angels, to the 
association of devils, he will remain with them, and under their 
ministrations every tare that is in the wheat of his life will be win¬ 
nowed out, and he will be guided by their counsel and at the proper 
time be received into his place in heaven. On the other hand, if 
Jones, like the prodigal, voluntarily parts company with the angels 
in whose charge the Lord places him, and goes off and consorts with 
devils, what little good he has will be taken away from him and he 
will be cast into more grievous states of life than he was ever in on 
the earth, and there he will remain until he has paid the last farthing 
and learned that he is a fool; when the Lord, who says that “He 
will not leave his soul in hell,” will lead him forth by some way of 
which at present neither Jones nor others, perhaps, know. 


282 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


The ministration of angels in the salvation of all heirs of salva¬ 
tion is as much superior to the ministration of earthly ministers as 
heaven is superior to earth. Were this not so, not one would be 
• finally saved where there are ten thousand saved. 

On one occasion when John had proclaimed the above senti¬ 
ments, a lady whose church spirit greatly exceeded her Christian 
spirit, with dilated nostrils and heaving bosom, very angrily re¬ 
marked : 

“I don’t believe that God gives people any such chances to be 
saved.” 

To this John replied : 

“My dear sister, how many chances would you give your boy 
to be saved from the penitentiary, even worse, from hell? You 
hardly think you could give him too many chances, do you ?” 

“Oh, no,” said the lady; “I’d give my boy ten thousand chances 
to be saved; but the Lord don’t and won’t.” 

“Then,” replied John, “it is to be supposed that, notwithstand¬ 
ing the Bible says, ‘When my father and my mother forsake me, 
the Lord will take me up,’ you would do more for your boy than the 
Lord would do. The truth is that you might sit down and think of 
ten thousand ways of saving your boy; but the Lord will think of 
ten thousand more until he is saved, if he wishes to be saved. For 
whoever asks, knocks, or hungers, or thirsts, shall get what he asks, 
knocks, seeks, hungers, or thirsts for.” 

The good lady could not claim to be more willing to save than 
the Lord, or that she would give her boy more chances of a reasonable 
kind to be saved than the Heavenly Father would give, especially as 
His mercy endureth, not for a day, not for one life, nor for one world, 
but “forever and forever.” 

What more reasonable than that angels, who know everything, 
will be able to save more people than earthly preachers, who in nine 
cases out of ten, are but the “blind leading the blind?” Besides, such 
texts of Scripture as the following directly assert the many uses of 
angels as helps to men: “The angel of the Lord campeth round 
about them that fear Him and delivereth them“He shall give His 
angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall 
bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” 
In Acts reference is made to those “who have received the law by 
the disposition of angels.” Luke shows that angels “take charge” 
of people when they die; for it is there emphatically stated. “And 
it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels 


SEVERAL PREACHERS AND POINTS OF DOCTRINE. 


283 


into Abraham’s bosom.” Matthew shows that angels are employed 
to judge, or to separate the tares from the wheat; for in the parable 
of the tares and wheat it is stated, “Let both grow until the harvest, 
and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together 
first the tares, but gather ye the wheat into my barn.” “The harvest 
is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.” One of 
the distinct promises made by the Lord to those “who have followed 
me in the regeneration,” or who have become angels, is “Ye shall sir 
upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” The great 
apostle expressly declares, “Do ye not know that the saints shall 
judge the world?” and adds, “Know ye not that we shall judge an¬ 
gels?” Perhaps a thousand instances might be cited in the Scrip¬ 
tures where the Lord uses angels for “delivering men,” for “taking 
charge” of men, “holding men up in their hands,” for “teaching” 
men, for “judging” men, for separating good and bad,—yea, for 
all kinds of ministrations; for is it not written of angels, “Are they 
not all ministering spirits sent forth (sent out of the heavens) to 
minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation ?” 

Not until the Dark Ages did the Church lose sight of the 
“ministration of angels.” In fact, the angels do as much more for 
men than men on earth do, as the angels “excel” men in strength 
and wisdom and love. 

No man who is a believer in the Holy Scriptures, and is sane 
of mind, can read the' beautiful volume entitled, “The Angels: 
Who are They, and What Do They Do ?” written by a Bible Student, 
John Hyde, but will see plainly that, without the ministration of 
angels, but few if any could be saved. As a matter of course, all 
admit that the preachers on earth do a good deal in helping to save 
men. Much more do heavenly or angelic ministers minister, not to 
one only, but to all who shall be heirs of salvation.” Only a mate¬ 
rialistic church can or will deny this. 

' As to the Scriptures, John preached boldly that in all cases 
where the literal sense or “letter” would kill, the spirit, or spiritual 
sense, would make wise unto life and salvation. All the literal wars 
mentioned in the Bible, under this doctrine, would prove to be wars 
against the enemies in our own heart and mind household. Instead 
of killing real men, women, and children, in wars of extermination, 
according to the literal practice of the heathen and barbarous Jews, 
Christians are to exterminate all errors of mind represented by 
men, and all evil lusts represented by women, and eradicate all 
thoughts of error and affections for evil, represented by sons and 
daughters. 


284 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


By “spiritually discerning” the Scriptures there is not a wilder¬ 
ness in all Bible places that might not be made to bloom as a fruitful 
garden. There is not a “rock,” great or small, that may not be made 
to gush forth with waters of life. 

As to the “Doctrine of the Lord,” that made the Lord Jesus 
Christ the “first and the last,” the “Alpha and Omega,” the “be¬ 
ginning and the end of the Godhead,”—made Him not only “the 
Son,” but also “the Father” and the “Almighty God,” on this John 
laid great stress; because it involved a subject which, if not under¬ 
stood, involved all other themes in darkness and confusion, because 
this is a thing that the “first and great commandment” deals with, as 
stated by Jesus Himself, “The first of all the commandments is, 
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord.” Not only the 
“first” in order of statement, but, like the first principles of any 
science, it must first be understood before there can be any possible 
understanding of the deep things of such science. As a matter of 
fact, the proper understanding of the doctrine of the Godhead be¬ 
ing in its fullness in the Lord Jesus Christ will not leave one single 
stone on top of another of any creed as now formulated and preached 
by the so-called “orthodox” churches. The very fact that this doc¬ 
trine will lead to the utter overthrow of all the doctrines of the or¬ 
thodox church creeds makes it very distasteful to a mere ecclesi¬ 
astic. Scarcely an “orthodox” preacher can even discuss the subject 
without getting angry. The mention of it seems to have about the 
same effect on the orthodox church preacher as did the declaration of 
Jesus on the Jewish multitude when He said, speaking of His “ever¬ 
lasting Fatherhood,” “Before Abraham was I am.” 

This invariably causes the “casting of stones,” if not a “cast¬ 
ing out of the synagogue.” The following is an account of a little 
altercation that John had with his presiding elder on the subject. 
The elder had called at the parsonage to give John some advice on 
church doctrine, and among other things said: 

“I understand from some of our local preachers that you do 
not believe in the three persons in the Godhead as laid down in our 
articles of religion. How is this?” 

John’s wife was sitting near, and knowing that John’s hour of 
being “accused” was at hand, laughingly said: 

“Brother Monroe, I don’t think that you and John will ever 
agree about what is good Christian doctrine until you agree how such 
doctrine is to be proved, whether from the words of the Bible itself, 
or from the writings of this or that church. I told John some years 


SEVERAL PREACHERS AND POINTS OF DOCTRINE. 


285 


ago, when he contended that he could preach anything that he could 
prove from the Scriptures, that he perhaps would find himself mis¬ 
taken when what he preached and proved from the Scriptures was 
not in keeping with what the church standards taught on such sub¬ 
jects. 

“Now, to save a good deal of misunderstanding between you 
and John, hadn’t you better both agree to find out whether you wish 
to prove things by the words of the Holy Scriptures or by citations 
from the writings of the Methodist Church ?” 

Here the elder perhaps saw that he was in a “pocket,” and said 
that really there was a subject of more importance, and which could 
be better understood than the subject of the Godhead, and that was 
the subject of “experimental religion,” about which the elder said 
he had heard that John was heterodox, or at least not Methodistic. 

On this point John‘stated his views substantially as before stated 
in this chapter, and added: 

“As to the mere feeling of exultation that people have when 
they perceive that they love God or God loves them, such feelings 
are no index of the initial of regeneration; because every man under¬ 
going the life of regeneration has such feelings on thousands, if not 
ten thousands, of occasions.” 

“What do you mean,” replied the elder, “by undergoing the life 
of regeneration? Don’t you believe the good old Methodist doc¬ 
trine that men are regenerated, born again, born from above, born 
of God, at some particular time and place?” 

Here John frankly stated : 

“I do not believe in what is called ‘instantaneous regeneration.’ 
I believe that the putting off of the old man, Adam, and the putting 
on of the new man, Christ Jesus, never did and never will and never 
can take place at and during the duration of any particular tick of 
the clock. It is a lifetime work,—a daily taking up of the cross of 
Christ and crucifying the flesh and its lusts and appetites; and as the 
old Adamic life is lost in the death of these evils, the new Christian 
life of counter good flows in; as you die to one, you are made alive 
to the other. I cannot call to mind one single analogy in all nature, 
or one single text of Scripture in all the Bible, that would lead any 
intelligent man to believe that anybody ever has, or ever will, or ever 
can, in a moment, die to all of the old Adam in him and be made 
alive to all the new man Christ Jesus. Such things are utterly out of 
the range of all intelligent human experience, contrary to all analo- 


286 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


gies of God’s book, as written in the things of nature, and nowhere 
asserted by his revealed Word as contained in the Bible. 

“On the other hand, there are manifold texts of Scripture that 
directly assert that, as it took the Christ thirty odd years in his life, 
to put off all that he inherited from the Jewish mother,and put on 
all that ‘came down from his Heavenly Father,’ so also it will take 
any and all men a good lifetime in this world and the help of angels 
in the world of spirits before they will fulfill the ‘following of 
Him in the regeneration’ which all must undergo before they shall 
be like Him, or born again, or renewed in His image and likeness. 

“From Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians it will be seen that Christ- 
had a dual nature, the infirm human derived from the Jewish mother 
and the Divine which was the Father dwelling within. So, man 
has two natures,—one called the Adamic, from below, and the other 
‘of God from above.’ Paul described these two natures, and warned 
against the lower. If a person is ‘led of the flesh,’ or the old evil 
Adamic nature, he is not ‘born of God.’ If, however, he be fled 
of the spirit,’ he is ‘born of God.’ 

“Now, everybody knows that this contest within himself to de¬ 
termine whether the ‘flesh’ or the ‘spirit’ shall rule, began at a time 
to which their memory does not run back, when they first had some 
suspicion, let alone conviction, that there was some difference be¬ 
tween right and wrong, and when this ‘life and death’ in doing the 
right or doing the wrong was set before them. And any man who 
has intelligence to perceive and honesty to admit what he sees, will 
admit that during his entire earthly life this contest of being fled 
b)r the flesh’ or by ‘the spirit’ is going on. Only the angels will be 
with him when the contest ends, and when he shall be holy sufficient 
to go, without the sound of axe or any tool of iron, into his heavenly 
house or home. 

“Hence the Lord speaks of the matter, not as an instantaneous 
act, but as a following of Him; for He says, ‘Verily I say unto you 
that ye that have followed me in the regeneration . . . shall sit 

upon twelve thrones.’ The Book of Revelation describes it as an 
‘overcoming.’ The apostles described the life of regeneration as a 
-warfare. In fact, it is a whole lifetime affair, and does not take place 
at any particular moment. If the being ‘born from above,’ or the 
kingdom of God in us, does not come as seed that is planted and 
gradually sprouts and gradually gets the blade and the stalks, and 
then the bloom and then the ear, etc., then there is no use in trying 
to believe the direct and plain words of the Scriptures.” 


SEVERAL PREACHERS AND POINTS OF DOCTRINE. 


287 


Here the good old elder said: 

“While what you say, Brother Counsellor, is not Methodistic, 
yet it has some ground for being believed from a Scriptural stand¬ 
point, but while we remain in the Methodist ministry we must sub¬ 
mit to Methodist usages and doctrines.” 

Here Sister Counsellor announced supper, which I think she 
had “hurried up a lee-tle” for reasons that are obvious. 

At the table the elder concluded his grace with the usual 
wind-up of “for Christ’s sake.” John was about to ask him for his 
authority in asking everything “for Christ’s sake,” when his good 
wife, seeing what was coming, turned the subject by inquiring about 
the wives and children of some of the brother preachers in the dis¬ 
trict. This was the last interview between John and his presiding 
elder. As to what the elder thought and did, we shall see when the 
next annual conference meets in a month or so at Columbia. 

The next week John had a chance at his table to call for Bible 
authority justifying the conclusion of all prayers with the usual 
“orftiodox” phrase, “for Christ’s sake.” 

A Christian minister, of the Alexander Campbell faith, was 
dining with him, He concluded his “grace” with “for Christ’s sake,” 
and in the course of the meal, after John had complimented the sect 
to which the minister belonged as “proving all things by the Scrip¬ 
tures,” and after speaking of a good many “non-scriptural supersti¬ 
tions” and errors that the followers of Mr. Campbell had exploded, 
John said to the minister: 

“Brother Everett, I know that you people pride yourselves on 
being able to prove what you preach from the Scriptures. How¬ 
ever, there are some things that you practice for which I have never 
been able to see how you find any scripture.” 

“What practice,” said the preacher, “do you allude to?” 

“Why,” responded John, “that of ending your prayers as you 
did your little ‘grace,’ with the phrase, ‘for Christ’s sake.’ Where 
is any scripture for such practice?” 

While it is true that the members of his church are as ready 
with scriptural quotations as the left-handed Benjamites were in 
“slinging stones at a hair’s breadth,” yet at this the preacher hummed 
and hesitated, and made several attempts at several quotations which 
he failed to complete, when John’s wife, seeing the situation, inter- 
.posed: 

“Well, papa, may be Brother Everett has not thought this sub¬ 
ject of sufficient importance to study up on, and perhaps you had 


288 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


better give the scriptures on your side first, and then give Brother 
Everett a chance; because that is nothing but fair. Yes, I think it is 
altogether parliamentary for the one that proposes a subject to open 
the discussion.” 

“Yes,” said John to his wife, “what you say is true. But didn’t 
Brother Everett open the subject by concluding his grace as he did? 
But, if the subject is not distasteful to him, we will waive all for¬ 
malities and technicalities as to the right of way in discussion, and 
say: 

“First, that this saying is based on the erroneous idea that there 
are two Gods, or at least, ‘two persons,’ in the Godhead, and that one 
of these must be addressed for the sake of the other one. There 
can be no doubt but that such altogether unscriptural delusion gave 
rise to this altogether unscriptural phrase of asking one person of 
the Godhead to do something for the sake of another person in the 
Godhead. 

“Just as soon as men begin to see that there is but one God, 
and that the Lord Jesus Christ is this ‘only wise God,’ as Jude says, 
then will this phrase, ‘for Christ’s sake,’ cease to be used by any in¬ 
telligent minister.” 

“How .will you conclude your prayers?” inquired the minister. 

“Why,” said John, “didn’t the Lord Himself give an example 
of prayer when He said, ‘after this manner, therefore, pray ye?’ 
This prayer expressly taught by the Saviour Himself did not con¬ 
clude with a ‘for Christ’s sake,’ but with an ascription that gave 
some reason why the prayer would be answered; because it says, 
as a reason, ‘For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,’ 
which are very powerful reasons why one might expect the One 
prayed to to answer and give what was asked for,—because He has 
all the power, and would be glorified in exercising it.” 

“It is true,” continued John, “that prayers in the Bible have all 
been concluded seemingly somewhat at variance with the concluding 
ascription in the Lord’s Prayer; but this is only seeming. Nowhere 
was ever a prayer concluded in the Bible based on the idea of there 
being two Gods, with such words as ‘for Christ’s sake.’ ” 

“Well, please give a few samples of how a prayer ought to be 
concluded from a Bible standpoint,” said the preacher, who had 
begun to exercise the peculiar trait of his sect of people in getting 
Bible authority for proving things. 

“Here is one,” said John. “In Isaiah it is said, ‘I, even I am 
He that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake.” In Ne- 


SEVERAL PREACHERS AND POINTS OF DOCTRINE. 


289 


hemiah it is said, ‘For thy great mercy’s sake thou didst not consume 
them nor forsake them.’ The Psalmist said, ‘Arise and redeem us 
for thy mercies’ sake.’ -Again, ‘Remember me for thy goodness’ 
sake.’ The Prophet Isaiah said, as a cause for hoping good things, 
‘I will mention the loving kindness of the Lord, and the praises of the 
Lord and the great goodness which He hath bestowed on them 
(not for Christ’s sake, but) according to the multitude of His loving 
kindnesses.’ 

“Everywhere prayer should be concluded with the expectation 
that it will be granted because of the Lord’s loving kindness, or of 
His ‘great goodness,’ just as children expect to get things from 
their parents, because they know that their parents love them.” 

Here the preacher said: 

“I’ll think of this matter, and if I can find any scripture to justify 
my use of ‘for Christ’s sake’ I will call again and let you know.” 

But he never called any more at all. 

John was about to ask him the difference between praying to 
“God” as such, and the “Father” as such, and whether any Christian, 
taking the Lord’s form of prayer, was at all justified in praying to 
the Divine except under His name of “Everlasting Father” or 
“Father in Heavenbut his wife, seeing that their visitor was not 
altogether at ease at the shape of things, changed the subject, by 
saying: 

“Brother Everett, can’t you bring every one of the children and 
Sister Everett with her knitting and darning and spend the day with 
us ? I know that we would all love each other more if we only knew 
each other better.” 

To tell the truth, perhaps Brother Everett appreciated a triumph 
in a wordy discussion of more importance than ‘loving one another,’ 
notwithstanding the Apostle John’s teachings. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


A DOCTRINE FOR WHICH JOHN WAS NOT ACCUSED OF 
HERESY; BUT WHICH CAUSED HIS ACTION 
AFTER THE METHODIST CONFERENCE. 


A Subject That Did Ring and Ring in John’s Ears—A Fireside Talk 
About It Between John and His Wife—The “Second Coming”—It Is 
Now “At Hand,” Sweeping Like a Noah’s Flood, but the Churches Don’t 
Know It—What Is Meant by the “Old” and “New” Heaven and Earth— 
John and His Wife Hold Up Their Heads and Rejoice. 


There was one thing above all others that kept ringing, ringing 
in his ears, and kept up a commotion in his life that might well be 
described as wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes from beneath, the 
darkening of the sun by day and the failing of the light of the moon 
by night, and the falling of the stars from such heavens as were 
at that time above his mental earth. 

He seemed to be on a house-top with voices saying, “Don’t go 
down.” 

Seemingly, angels out of the Scriptures, as well as his mother, 
who was now an angel, and his wife, who already measured many^ 
heights, depths, breadths, and lengths of the measurement of angel¬ 
hood, and the words of his old newspaper friend, all of these angel 
voices kept proclaiming with trumpet-like tones in his ear the hun¬ 
dred and odd things revealed as startling but solemn truths in the 
twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew and in all the twenty-two chapters 
of the Book of Revelation. Every once in a while a startlingly 
solemn truth with new light would flash athwart his mind like “light¬ 
ning that cometh out of the east and shineth unto the west.” How¬ 
ever, these fitful flashes of light were growing more and more into 
the light of a day in which there was to be no succeeding night, nor 
need of candle between flashes of lightning. ' 

He would open at the Book of Daniel and read, “And I saw 
in the night visions, and, behold, one like unto the Son of Man came 

( 290 ) 





THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 291 

with the clouds of heaven,” and, like Daniel, John “was grieved in 
his spirit in the midst of his body and the visions of his head troubled 
him.” 

“Is it possible,” he pondered from time to time, “that what Jesus 
said in verses thirty-seven and thirty-eight of the twenty-fourth 
chapter of Matthew’s Gospel,—is it possible, yea, is it not even prob¬ 
able, that the second coming of the Son of Man would be as the days 
of Noe, wherein all but a very few ‘knew not until the flood came 
and took them all away?’. ‘Yes, yes,’ said John, ‘such a thing is not 
only possible, but it is probable.’ It is declared by Jesus Himself 
to be a fact. For the Scripture above written concludes, ‘So shall 
also the coming of the Son of Man be.’ ” 

John read an exposition of the Scriptures sent to him by his 
old newspaper friend ’which said: “Spiritually discerned, a flood 
means a perfect inundation and overflow by errors and falsehoods 
and spiritual lies of all the whole world of truth.” 

Such was “Noe’s flood.” The whole firmament of truth, the 
light of sun, moon, and stars, was darkened. So, at the first coming 
of the Son of Man, the Jews, the organized ecclesiasticism of that 
day, had darkened all the truths of heaven. Said Jesus himself: 
“Ye have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tra¬ 
ditions.” The chief of which “traditions” is that of which the Apostle 
Paul says: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy 
and vain deceit after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of 
the world and not after Christ; for in Him (Christ Jesus the Lord) 
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” 

Now, John knew from history that the Jews had altogether re¬ 
jected and crucified Christ Jesus the Lord. And he knew from ac¬ 
tual hearing and seeing that the ecclesiastical traditions of this day 
of the second coming of the Son of Man had again “spoiled” of their 
meaning the thousand and one commandments which proclaim the 
great central truth of all Scripture, that in the Lord Jesus Christ 
“dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” 

Some of the present-day creeds call the Lord Jesus Christ the 
“second person in the Trinity.” Many so-called Christian ministers 
look on Him as only a superior prophet or teacher. Many of them 
pray to another God (in their minds) called “the Father,” and “for 
the sake” of the God called “the Son,” and expect their prayers to be 
answered. In fact, John himself, in his youth under the ecclesiastical 
church tradition about the Godhead consisting of “three persons,” 
had been in mind, a “Tri-theist,”—praying to “God the Father” for 


292 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


the sake of “God the Son” to send “God the Holy Spirit” to do this 
and that. In worship, under the bewildering influence of this “Three 
Persons” tradition, he at times was pained at the idea that he might 
give a little too much glory to God the Son for being, seemingly, 
a little bit more tender and compassionate than God the Father was in 
demanding a good-sized price to be paid to his justice before he would 
consent to forgive the foibles and shortcomings of his poor, sickly, 
sin-stricken children on earth. And on inquiry John had found that 
this was about the pained and confused state of mind entertained by 
both members and ministry who had intelligence enough to have 
a rational thought about it, and sufficient courage of conviction to 
confess their sin in this vital respect against the great central truth 
of all Scripture, that “there is but one God,” that “the Lord Jesus 
Christ is this One God,” that “beside Him there is no God,” that to 
Him directly all worship should be given in heaven and on earth; and 
to whom all prayer should be directed as to “Our Father in Heaven,” 
because He is not only the Son, but the “Almighty God, the Ever¬ 
lasting Father.” 

When the words written in Revelation were trumpeted in his 
ears, “Behold I make all things new,” when he heard, as stated in 
the first chapter of Revelation, “Jesus Christ who is the faithful (or 
truthful) witness,” saying to John “to write the things that thou hast 
seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be here¬ 
after,” and among these “written things” read and re-read such truths 
as that at His second coming, and really as the occasion of His 
second coming, the organized church had become fallen from its high 
apostolic calling, and become the habitation of devils, and the hold of 
every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 

So, as usual in such cases, he went to his wife. 

“Mamma,” said he, “open up the old marked Bible, and let’s 
see what it says.” 

“Mamma,” with a smile on her face, said: 

“Now, John, I think that this opening of the Bible is quite an im¬ 
provement on your ‘Well, well, wells.’ ” 

So she got the old marked Bible, and opened it and read: 

“Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see, and 
they also that pierced Him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail 
because of Him.” 

“Well,” said John, “I guess that I am at least one of the ‘all 
kindreds of the earth;’ for I certainly, like Daniel, have a little bit 
of the ‘wail’ feeling. Let me see. Didn’t we read one of thbse 


THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 


293 


leaflets from the tree of life whose leaves were for the healing of the 
nations that wail, in which it was stated, and we thought thoroughly 
proved from the Scripture, that the term ‘cloud when spiritually in¬ 
terpreted and discerned meant the letter of the Bible, which shaded 
or veiled the inner meaning, or spirit, or ‘spiritual meaning,’ and 
that ‘eye,’ being spiritually discerned, meant the mind that mentally 
‘sees’ what is the meaning of things ?” 

“Certainly,” said the wife, “there can be no doubt that in the 
Bible the letter is but a covering, or cloud, to veil the real spirit of 
things, so as to prevent such truths from being like the sunshine, 
too intense for the mind to receive in all fullness without being 
dazzled. Even Jehovah, when He wanted to manifest Himself to 
man, knowing that God out of Christ is a consuming fire, and that 
unless He ‘veiled Himself,’ ‘covered Himself,’ ‘clothed Himself,’ yes, 
‘hid’ Himself, in a covering, or body, of human kind, man could not 
see Him and live, ‘veiled’ Himself by making Himself a little lower 
than the angels, and took upon Himself a body ‘of the seed of Abra¬ 
ham,’ as Paul wrote to the Hebrews.” 

“Now, John,” said the wife, “the Word as well as God was made 
‘flesh,’ that is, it also had a covering to the spirit of it, as a man’s 
body of flesh covers the spirit within the man. Now you see, John, 
how this is. If all of a sudden you had come into the knowledge or 
light of the fact that we are now in the midst of the day and the 
things of the second coming of the Son of Man, as declared in Mat¬ 
thew and Revelation, my opinion is that you could have hardly stood 
the intense light, and you would have been in the plight of Paul 
when ‘suddenly there shined about him a light from Heaven, and 
he fell to the earth.’ You would have trembled with a fear, as the 
Israelites did at the hearing from Sinai of the commandments. There 
had to be a ‘thick cloud on the mount.’ ” 

“Well,” said John, “I see in all the letter of the Scripture that 
this is the time of the second coming. And all commentators—‘every 
eye’—see this. Now open the book again.” 

The wife opened and read : 

“Behold. The tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall 
dwell with them and they shall be His people, and God himself shall 
be with them, their God.” 

“That means,” said John, “that the Lord has assumed a Divine- 
human body, or tabernacle, so that He might ‘manifest Himself to 
man’ as ‘their God.’ While formerly men had to go to the temple 
at Jerusalem to worship God, now they can come to Him in the tab- 


294 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


ernacle of His body, in which He dwells, or is apprehensible and 
come-at-able by the minds of men.” 

'“Yes,” continued the wife, “in Verse 22 it is declared, 'I saw 
no temple therein; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are 
the temple of it.’ ” 

“Yes,” said John, “Jesus told the woman at the well of Samaria 
that there was no longer any need of going up to the temple at 
Jerusalem to worship God, and Habakkuk and Stephen and Paul all 
denied the idea of worship being confined to buildings made with 
men’s hands, but spoke, as did Habakkuk, of ‘the Lord being in His 
Holy Temple,’ speaking of ‘the temple of His body,’ in which ‘dwelt 
all the fullness of the Godhead.’ ” 

“Then,” said the wife, “I gather from what you say, and from 
what one of those ‘leaflets from the tree of life’ showed to be the fact, 
that, so far as each person is concerned, the second coming of the 
Son of Man consists in this: 

“First, whenever a person has lost sight of the fact that there 
is but one God and that the Lord Jesus Christ is this only one God, 
and then, by searching the Scriptures, sees that there is but one God, 
and that the Lord Jesus Christ is this God, then takes place the second 
coming of this central truth of Him who said, ‘I am the Truth,’ to 
the mind of that person. 

“Second, when the mind has received the Lord Jesus Christ as 
the only wise God the Saviour, and the heart begins to love this only 
God, then is the second coming of the Son of Man, or God in His 
Divine humanity, to the heart of the person so loving Him. 

“Third, when the person with his mind sees and with his heart 
loves, and in his life, or acts, ‘obeys’ this Wonderful Counselor, this 
Almighty God, this Everlasting Father, this Son of Man and Prince 
of Peace, then there is the fulfillment of what Jesus Himself said: 
‘At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father. He that hath 
my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me, and 
I will manifest myself to him.’ ” 

“Yes,” said John, “that is exactly what I mean by the second 
coming of the Son of Man to individual men. Don’t you think that 
such coming is sufficient ? What more has a man than a mind and 
heart and strength ? To see, or understand, the Lord and His words, 
to love Him solely and supremely, and to keep His commandments, 
is a very high and large estate.” 

“Yes, I think so myself,” replied the wife. “But for people 
\vho look for some great spectacular appearing, as the Jews did. how 


THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 


295 


will you ever satisfy them that such a coming as you speak of is 
the fulfillment of all the glowing imagery with which Jesus in Mat¬ 
thew and John in Revelation portray this coming?” 

“Well,” said John, “let us take the case of His first coming. 
The Scriptures teach that as the Jews received Him at His first corn¬ 
ing, so will ecclesiastical hierarchies receive Him at His second com¬ 
ing. Now, you know that such glowing imagery as follows was 
prophesied of His first coming. 

“In Joel we read: ‘Like the noise of chariots on the top of 
mountains;’ ‘All faces shall gather blackness; ‘They shall enter into 
the windows like a thief;’ ‘The sun and the moon shall be dark 
and the stars shall withdraw their shining;’ ‘And I will show 
bonders in the heaven and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of 
smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into 
blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.’ 

“Ezekiel and Malachi and all the prophets had glowing imagery 
about the first coming. Now, the Jews took all these things literally, 
and lost all idea of the spiritual things signified by the prophets. 
They hoped for a great earthly kingdom instead of the ‘kingdom 
within them.’ In their wild ambition for a great leader who would 
join issue on some Pharsalian battle-field with Caesar and overcome 
him and bind him to the chariot wheels of the conqueror. 

“Now, when they saw ‘the carpenter’s son,’ the ‘man of sorrows,’ 
the homeless wanderer about the brakes of the wilderness, the itiner¬ 
ant preacher haunting the fords of Jordan and the tanglewood of sea¬ 
sides,—when they saw the penniless sad-visaged man who had, seem¬ 
ingly, to press fish into unwilling partnership to raise tax money,— 
when they heard His seemingly un-Romanlike courage proclaiming, 
‘If a man smite you on one cheek, turn the other to him,’ and, instead 
of sizing men up on the idea of ‘how big is Goliah,’ he estimated them 
as being great in proportion as they were like little children, and, 
instead of seeking dominion and rulership as masters over others, 
sought to become great by becoming servants of all others,—all their 
ideas of a King of kings and a Lord of lords disappeared at the one 
who was born in a horse-trough, educated in a carpenter’s shop, and 
crucified as a malefactor. 

“With all His great works of miracle, with all His exhibitions of 
wisdom, with all His wonderful counsel, the Jew could not be¬ 
lieve that this homeless ‘Man of sorrows’ and of ‘marred counte¬ 
nance’ was the expected Messiah, although they were looking for 
His coming; for the Samaritan woman said : ‘I know that Messias 
cometh, which is called Christ.’ 


296 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“So it will be with the 'fallen’ church dignitaries at His second 
coming. They will be—yea, they veritably are at this day—looking 
for this coming to be with some great spectacular exhibition of fire¬ 
works that will burn up the earth and illuminate the heavens like a 
burning city. They look for a literal coming of aj literal God upon 
the literal earth as a literal earthly ruler, at least for a .thousand 
years, just as the Jews did. They are looking for the setting up of 
a kingdom without, instead of a kingdom within them. 

“And notwithstanding spiritually their ‘sun,’ or love, has waxed 
cold, and their ‘moon,’ or faith, is growing dim and dimmer as the 
years come and go,—so dim that they have even quit hoping, let 
alone believing, &tiy thing about the coming of the Son of Man, or His 
ability to save them from sin while yet on the earth,—notwithstand* 
ing their 'stars,’ or knowledges of spiritual things, have ‘fallen’ 
from spiritual altitudes called heaven to the ground, so that they 
don’t know who their Lord is, what the resurrection is, what the 
atonement is, what the ministration of angels means,* what is the 
‘letter that kills, and the spirit that giv^th life,’—yea, notwithstand¬ 
ing they know that, out of some fifteen hundred millions of people 
on the earth, a fallen church has so failed to use its talent of preach¬ 
ing the Gospel to these millions and baptizing them into the name, 
or nature, of Jesus, only some four hundred million have ever heard 
the Gospel, and out of this four hundred million only about one in 
a thousand have ‘obeyed’ the Gospel, and even among those who 
have heard and been baptized, many, if not a majority, never go 
to church and do not even strive to walk perfectly in the law of 
the Lord. Yet they do not expect that God will take this Gospel¬ 
preaching exclusive prerogative, or talent, not used, from the non¬ 
user. In their wild, vainglorious 'imaginations of what great out¬ 
ward fireworks are to accompany the coming of the Meek and 
Lowly, they pay no attention to the ‘still, small voice’ that says, ‘I 
come as a thief in the night,’ just as the Spirit itself conies in the 
re-birth of man, coming whence and flowing whither no man knows. 

“In their vain imaginations as to the ‘Lo heres’ and the ‘Lo 
theres,’ they entirely overlook that coming to their minds and hearts 
and lives of the Scripture fact that there is but one God, and that 
the Lord Jesus Christ is that God to whom all knowledge and love 
and obedience are due.” 

Here the good wife said: 

“So you see, John, we are beginning to realize what our good 
old newspaper friend said we would if we only ‘followed on to 


THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 


297 


know.’ Listen here, what the marked Scriptures say: ‘Neverthe¬ 
less, I am continually with thee; thou hast holden me up by thy 
right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterward 
receive me to glory/ ” 

“Yes,” said John, “were it not for such helpful. scriptures as 
the one you have read, we indeed would grow faint of courage, and 
experience what was prophesied of this second coming, that in 
its day men’s hearts would fail them for fear.” 

“Papa,” said the wife, “didn’t our newspaper friend say that 
the chief rulers, as well as traditions or creeds of the so-called 
‘orthodox’ ecclesiasticisms would take about the same attitude to¬ 
ward the true doctrine of the Lord at His second coming as the 
scribes and chief rulers, together with the priests and elders, with 
their traditions, did at His first coming?” 

“Well, I think he did,” said John; “but the very thought of 
such a thing affects me as Daniel was affected in his ‘night visions’ 
of the coming of the Son of Man. Daniel said of the seeing of the 
things of this coming: ‘I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit in the 
midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me.’ And 
1 fancy that, inasmuch as our own beloved Methodist ecclesiasticism 
is in some danger of being drifted into the same relation to true, 
Christian doctrine as the Jews were in, we would better do as Daniel 
stated: ‘Hitherto is the end of the matter. As for me, Daniel, 
my cogitations much troubled me and my countenance changed in 
me; but I kept the matter in my heart.’ ” 

“That is, you think,” said the wife, “that, as long as you re¬ 
main a Methodist minister, loyalty to the church compels you to 
preach nothing contrary to the Methodist, creed ?” 

“Well, not exactly that,” replied John, “but it is sometimes 
better to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. The con¬ 
ference will soon meet and may be the Lord will lead us, by a way 
we know not, out of the dilemma.” 

“Yes,” smilingly replied the wife, “by a way that we don’t 
know of; for the Book says this ‘way’ that we don’t know of is a 
very evident affair. Because we must confess that to be in a church 
and not of it, and the getting along in such a divided-house state of 
affairs without a ‘scene’ is something that is going to take a great 
deal more of wisdom than most of us children have. You really 
think, papa, that all of the orthodox world is at the parting of the 
ways in which they must either follow the Lord Jesus Christ as the 
only God of heaven and earth, or, like the Jews, they must reject 
Him as such.” 


298 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Why, certainly/' replied John. “There is nothing more evi¬ 
dent than that the churches are being drifted, or swept away, with¬ 
out knowing it, into the denial of the Lord Jesus Christ as the only 
wise God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Are not 
they all worshipers of Mars? Is there any concord between Mars 
and Jesus? Do they not all pray to the Father as one person, ‘for 
the sake of Christ,' another person, thus making two Gods? In¬ 
variably yes, without a single exception among the preachers whom 
I have tried, and I have tried over one hundred, without one single 
exception when you say that there is but one God and that the Lord 
jesus Christ is this one God, they will ask, ‘Where then is the 
Father?’ and begin to argue and confirm their idea of the Father 
and the Son being different persons, by asking, ‘Didn’t the Son 
pray to the Father?’ Why, right in the beginning, they excitedly 
exclaim, ‘Wasn’t it said, Let us make man in our image?’ and they 
will quote any passage of Scripture that has the least appearance of 
there being two or three Gods; notwithstanding that these Scrip¬ 
tures do not refer to a duality or multiplicity of persons or of Gods 
at all, but to the different elements or features of the same Person 
or God. For instance, David prayed, ‘O my soul, why art thou cast 
down within me? Plope thou in God.’ Yet all know that this ad¬ 
dress to his soul as ‘thou,’ as seemingly a second person, didn’t make 
two men or two people out of the one. man David. Paul spoke of 
two things or principles in himself. The Godhead has such fea¬ 
tures and elements as make God at one time a ‘Redeemer,’ then 
a ‘Saviour,’ then a ‘Father,’ then a ‘King,’ then ‘Cord,’ then ‘Jesus,’ 
then the ‘Christ,’ then the ‘Son of God,’ then the ‘Son of Man,’ 
yet even the orthodox churches have not gone so far astray as to 
call the Saviour one person and the Redeemer another person, the 
Father another person, the Son another person, and the Holy Spirit 
another ‘very God,’ and the Son of Man a different person from 
the Son of God, and so on ad infinitum, in multiplying Gods many 
and Lords many and persons many. And yet this is the very pro¬ 
cess of mind, the very road traveled by the Greeks in multiplying 
their Gods up to several thousand in number. The Romans did 
the same thing. So, also, did the Assyrians and the Egyptians. 
And even the Jews, by this same process, got to worshiping every¬ 
thing from a calf to Baal-peor, and from Baal-peor to Solomon,— 
on one Sabbath going to a Zidonian temple with one of his Zidonian 
wives and worshiping the ‘Goddess of the Zidonians,’ and on the 
next Sabbath going with one of the Ammonitish wives and wor- 


THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 


299 


shiping ‘Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites/ (I Kings 
xi. 5.) And so on through Jeroboam’s reign, of which it is written 
(I Kings xii. 28) : ‘Whereupon the king took counsel and made 
two calves of gold, and said unto them (the Israelites), ‘It is too 
much for^vou to go up to Jerusalem. Behold thy gods, O Israel, 
that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.’ 

“You know that when ideas were expressed by means of sym¬ 
bols, the ‘calf’ was the symbol of a particular feature or character¬ 
istic of the Godhead. The Jews separated this element, or one par¬ 
ticular feature, into another person or thing, and worshiped it as a 
god having a separate existence from the body of the Godhead of 
which it was only a part. 

“Our present day ‘orthodox’ creeds have progressed along the 
same road of multiplying Gods and Lords, and ‘very’ divine per¬ 
sons, to the extent of at least three; and it is only a question of time 
when they will have more. Some of them have already added the 
Virgin Mary and some this saint and some that. Nearly all of 
them place Peter and Paul and James and John on a level of in¬ 
fallibility with the Lord Llimself, and are naming their temples, 
‘Church of St. John,’ ‘Church of St. Peter,’ instead of having a rriere 
wayside synagogue for opening the Bible and teaching, or the Church 
of Christ, with Christ Jesus as the only Rabbi and Master and 
Priest and Prophet, and the only wise God our Saviour. It is ter¬ 
rible,” groaned John. “It is well that the great apostle Paul warned 
the church at Corinth that, though ‘there be that are called Gods 
whether in heaven or on earth (as there be gods many and lords 
many), but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all 
things, and our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things.’ That 
is, there is but one God—one Divine Being—consisting of the 
Father as the Soul and the Christ as the body, yet being but one 
God, as a man’s soul and body are but one man; for you know that 
a man is made in the image and likeness of God.” 

“But, papa,” queried the now thoroughly interested wife, “what 
about the new earth and the new heavens and the passing away 
of the old earth and the old heavens that both Daniel and John 
speak of as taking place at the second coming?” 

“Why, darling,” said John, “this is all plain. Just take our 
case to whose minds the Lord has come, as yet only in fitful flashes 
of light or lightning through the clouds of heaven, through the 
letter of the Word of God. Just see how it is with us. The old 
earth of Methodism with its priests worshiping Mars, with its ‘rul- 


300 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


ing elders and bishops/ with its denials of the ministrations of an¬ 
gels, with its horrible idea of the bloody sacrifice of one God to 
appease the vengeful wrath of another God,—why, all of this earth 
is quaking beneath our feet and passing away; and a new earth is 
taking the place of the old, in which new earth we are finding pretty 
much everything new,—a new idea of God, a new way of interpreting 
the Bible, a new way of praying direct to God ‘for His loving kind¬ 
ness’ sake.’ The old earth of a great earthly ecclesiasticism, with its 
earthly temples and earthly priests of power, is ‘falling, falling,’ 
and I may say, is about ‘fallen, fallen,’ from all Scripture places. 
And the heavens! The old heaven that was a place of idle vaga¬ 
bondism spent in loafing about at protracted meetings has given 
way to a heaven where each and all will have a home and something 
to do! The old heaven where God sits looking out for a chance 
to send some of his children to hell for any little wobbling on the 
spindle of their poor, sickly, weakly, diseased frames of body made 
out of dust,—this old heaven with its old God of vengeance has 
given way to a new heaven which is like a Father’s House of many 
mansions, with the doors open day and night on every side for the 
return to their homes of all His wandering, prodigal children that 
have wandered off among all the nations, kindreds, tribes, and 
tongues of earth. And in the doors of this heavenly House, the 
Father stands, longingly looking out for the return of His poor err¬ 
ing children. The old heaven of seeing God gathering a few of 
His sheep into the fold, and closing the doors while the ‘many’ of 
his children are out on the bleak, wintry mountains among wolves 
and wild beasts,—this old heaven has given place to a heaven in 
which we hear the Good Shepherd say, ‘I shall not rest day or night 
until I gather ninety-nine out of every hundred of my-children,— 
and when I’ve gathered these ninety-nine, I’ll not close the doors 
and sit down feasting while there is one of the family fold whose 
seat is vacant around the home fireside,—I’ll go forth, I’ll bend the 
heavens, I’ll go into the wilderness, I’ll ascend the mountain side, 
I’ll go into the world of spirits, I’ll descend into the hells, and 
I’ll not only find, but will press those of the streets into the great 
supper that I have prepared for the whole family. Yea, I’ll restore 
all places, persons, and things; there shall be a restitution of all 
things. All of the kingdoms of all worlds are mine, and I am 
going to have my way of salvation to the uttermost parts of every 
nation, kindred, tongue, and tribe.’ 


THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 


301 


“So the Lord hath said, and His word goeth forth so that there 
is no speech or language where it is not heard,—heard on earth, 
—heard in heaven,—heard by spirits imprisoned in the world of 
spirits, and his word shall not return unto Him void. He will 
gather in his arms and bring back on His shoulder all the wan¬ 
derers, all of even ‘the lost/ for His arms shall not be shortened 
or His strength weakened until He has overcome all,—yea, over¬ 
come death and hell itself, and set all prisoners free. Oh, my dar¬ 
ling, my darling wife, what would we not do for these our own little 
children that are innocently sleeping, looking to us for protection 
and food and clothing? We would do much for them. Yea, if we 
did a million times as much as we would and could do, yet the 
Heavenly Father w r ill do more for us. For your love for the little 
children that sleep to-night in our poor home may fail, my darling, 
but the love of God, the great heart of the great Father, will never 
fail. 

“What a different view of the Father is this from the old one 
that He is going to gather a few into His kingdom and turn the 
many over to the devil. Why, the Jews had this very idea of a very 
select set of elect. Oh, wife, wife,” exclaimed John, “look at our 
earthly church, the old Methodist ecclesiasticism. It is quaking 
beneath our very feet. For there shall be earthquakes. It is pass¬ 
ing away from our thQught, from our love, from our labors. Per¬ 
haps this is the last year that we shall ever labor in its vineyard 1 
It is passing, passing away, so far as our spiritual earth is concerned, 
and in its place a new earth, a new church is forming,—a church in 
which Jesus alone is the ‘Prince/ the ‘Almighty God/ the ‘Everlast¬ 
ing Father / and love with its consort truth—love to this God and 
the neighbor—takes the place of ‘faith alone.’ So of everything. 
Verily, the old heavens and earth are giving way with us to the 
new earth and heavens! 

“As with us individually, so it will be with the church. When 
the church, in its creed, in its faith, in its love, in its life of doing 
good, recognizes the Lord Jesus Christ as the only one to love,— 
the only one to follow,—then there will be a passing away of the old 
miserable church earth, and in its place a new church on earth will 
come. Yea, the very ‘orthodox’ heavens with its select few, with 
mothers feasting while their children are burning—even the old God 
as imagined bv the old mind of men, as one who had to be paid a 
bloody price to buy off His justice, will give way to a God who 
spends all of His riches of power and wisdom and love to save His 


302 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


children. What further use have we for an old earth and an old 
imaginary heaven passing away as worthless as a scroll? Have 
we not the coming of a new earth and a new heaven wherein dwelleth 
righteousness (not wrongness), and in which there is no night. 
Oh, indeed, we can now understand, when we see the effects on 
our minds of the second coming of the Son of man, why the Master 
said, ‘Hold up your heads and rejoice’ at the prospect, let alone the 
reality, of such a coming. Who would not rejoice at the recognition 
of God as being such a God as dwelt in Jesus the Christ, so kind, 
so sympathetic, so helpful, so full of compassion, so much more 
kind to all of His children, especially the weak and sick ones, than 
an earthly father or mother can be? For He is our Heavenly 
Father who, when an earthly father and mother forsake us. will 
‘take us up.’ ” 

“Oh, papa,” said the wife, “if we could only get our good old 
Methodist Church to see like Daniel, yes, like even us now, in the 
‘night visions,’—yes, in the awfully dark night, the midnight itself 
of the church,—to see the ‘visions’ of the coming of the Son of Man 
such as we see. It cannot be possible,” continued the wife, “that 
you will be cast out of the church for seeing these ‘visions’ of the 
Son of Man, not only coming, but already come in the clouds of 
heaven to many here and there all over the earth!” 

“Well, you know, darling,” said John, “that they not only 
rejected the Lord Himself and cast Him out of His own kingdom, 
or church, but crucified Him. And He said that if they received 
not Him, neither would they receive His Word or His prophets. 
They would saw them asunder alike.” 

“There is another point,” continued the wife. “Did not one ot 
the leaflets that our old friend gave us say that in the world of 
spirits there had congregated during the Dark Ages an innumer¬ 
able horde of spirits of men from the earth, composed of agnostics 
and infidels, materialists and spiritualists, and those who believe lies 
and love mystery and darkness, and that his great horde vainly 
imagined and believed that, as they saw no devil or hell such as 
the ignorant church ecclesiastics had pictured on earth, therefore 
they were in heaven,—at the end of things?” 

“Yes,” replied John, “what you say is the truth. At the end 
of every dispensation the Bible describes a judgment in the spiritual 
world by spiritual means upon the spirits of that dispensation. And, 
as the world of spirits is the root, or source of life, of all things on 
earth, when anything takes place in that world, the effects are seen 


THE SECOND COMING OF .THE LORD. 


303 


on this earth. Hence, after John described a general judgment 
which he saw when he was ‘in' the spirit,’ and saw all of the imag¬ 
inary heavens dissolved by the proclamation of the truths indicated 
by the sounding of trumpets, he then described what came down 
from God out of heaven upon the earth, and, as there was a new 
idea in the world of spirits of what heaven is, so this new idea, or 
truth, came down upon the earth, and created a ‘new earth.’ Until 
this old, imaginary heaven, composed of the mingled horde of spirits 
that went up there during the Dark Ages was dissolved, the church 
on earth partook of the nature of the so-called church or heavens 
in the world of spirits. 

“But, from this on, the church r on earth, or the ‘new earth,’ will 
be patterned after the truths handed down from above, and thus 
be ‘born from above,’—which process is now going on. Now ah 
old things are being made new, in keeping with the ‘new heavens’ 
in the world of spirits.” 

“Then,” queried the wife, “I understand that, at the end of each 
dispensation, there is a general judgment in the world of spirits to 
judge such spirits as those spoken of in the parable of the wheat and 
tares, that couldn’t be judged as they went up from the earth, but 
had to be left until the ‘end of the world,’ by which ‘end’ we know 
is meant the end of a dispensation ?” 

“Certainly,” said John, “your idea is correct. “And the end 
of an old dispensation is always succeeded by a new one being set 
up, or inaugurated, in its place. This is indicated by an ‘old earth’ 
giving way to a ‘new earth’ and an ‘old heaven’ to a ‘new heaven.’ 

“Now, the so-called ‘orthodox’ church has come to an end,— 
at least, like the Jews, it has ceased to keep and cultivate the Lord’s 
vineyard. It has become Babelized and ‘drunk’ on the cup of a 
thousand fornicated and adulterated errors. At its close the ‘new 
earth’ and ‘new heaven,’ indicated by the New Jerusalem described 
in the Book of Revelation, is coming down from God out of heaven. 
We are now in the midst of the days of this coming, and if we can 
endure to the end all things will be glorious. The coming, so far 
as the earth of life is concerned, is like the tidal sap of spring com¬ 
ing into the roots and flowing out through the branches of forest 
and all vegetation,—throwing off the old bark and leaves and dead 
twigs, and putting out, like the fig tree, new leaves and new fruit. 

“We have to do with the judgment in the world of spirits only 
so far as that judgment affects us here on earth, and it affects us as 


304 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


causes are related to effects. Swedenborg, the greatest expositor 
of Scripture the world has ever seen, says that the judgment on 
Babylon, or on the fallen church of the Dark Ages, took place in the 
world of spirits some one hundred and fifty years ago, and its effects 
are now being manifested on the earth.’' 

It must be remarked that it is true that John’s mistaken idea 
of loyalty to his church creed, to his church “authorities,” and to his 
churchism generally, restrained him from publicly preaching the 
Gospel truth that he and his wife investigated and believed, as in 
this chapter related. And in this, did he not follow in the footsteps 
of the only “Master” of all things? For He, while a member of the 
Jewish Church, denounced its terrible apostasies and sins. Still, 
it may be that, while He was the Judge of the whole earth, yet no 
particular man is authorized to judge; but to do as John and his 
wife did, “search the Scriptures,” and learn and act for themselves. 
It was the entertaining of such truths as those given in this chapter 
that led John to the action which he took on being charged with 
heresy as hereinafter related. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


“SIGNS” OF THE NECESSITY FOR THE “SECOND COMING” 
OF THE SON OF MAN. 


Remarkable Sermon of Elder Leftwich, D. D.—-The “Throne” of 
Jesus the Lord to “Let Down”—Romanism of a Texas “Methodist Di¬ 
vine”—“Wooden Temples” Again Regarded “Holy”—The Ecclesiastical 
“Captains” Seek “Dens” and Call on “Rocks” to “Hide Them”—A Few 
of These “Dens” and “Rocks” 1 Enumerated and Exposed—Why John 
Didn’t “Go Out.” 


During John’s four years’ connection with the Southern Metho¬ 
dist Conference in Missouri, he heard a good many strange ideas ad¬ 
vanced by the big preachers. Perhaps the most noted of these were 
in a sermon preached bv the Rev. W. M. Leftwich, D. D., who was 
considered one of the ablest exponents of Law and Gospel in the 
bounds of Methodism, and for whom John personally entertained a 
regard, if not an affection, that a son might entertain for a father, 
for Dr. Leftwich was one of the most congenial and accomplished 
gentlemen that John ever met. Most especially was he kind and en¬ 
couraging to all young ministers. But, notwithstanding this, John 
and his wife were much staggered at one of his sermons, delivered 
at the dedication of one of the new churches built within the bounds 
of one of John’s circuits, Prairieville, if I recollect. The text was 
this : “Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver up the kingdom 
to God, even the Father.” 

What the good but not wise Brother Leftwich preached, and 
what effect it had on John and his wife, will be seen from the fol¬ 
lowing conversation that took place between them when they returned 
to the parsonage after the dedicating sermon. 

“Papa,” said the good wife, “we think the world and all of 
Brother Leftwich; but I don’t know when I was ever so much dis¬ 
appointed and actually pained at a sermon, as I was at his dedicatory 
sermon.” 

Now, John was as much pained as his wife, but he was a little 
more disposed to palliate things than was she,—not that he had more 

11 ( 305 ) 





306 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


of that charity that “hopes and bears all things” than did his wife, 
but because he had, at any time, less of that finer conscientiousness 
that demands that people shall not feign what they do not feel, which 
conscientiousness characterized his wife all through her life. So he 
merely said: 

“Well, well, well, darling!” 

Upon which the wife said: 

“Why, John, if the apostle had exhorted, ‘Let your conversation 
be ‘Well, well, well,’ instead of being ‘Yea, yea, and nay, nay,’ I 
think that you, instead of the Pope, would be in a sort of infallible 
apostolic succession—in style of conversation at least. Still, I think 
that really you are excusable for your wail of ‘Well, well, well,'— 
or rather your requiem of what you really mean and are trying to 
say, ‘Peace, peace, peace,’ when you know and feel that there is no 
peace. 

“Now, let me ask you a few questions,” continued the wife. 
“Didn’t Brother Leftwich expressly say that the kingdom of the Lord 
Jesus Christ would one day come to an end?” 

“Yes,” said John. 

“Well,” said the wife, “I am going to read what the Bible itself 
says about this kingdom of Christ. The Psalmist says, ‘The Lord is 
King forever and ever.’ Now Paul, in his first letter to Timothy, 
calls the Christ Jesus ‘the only Potentate, King of kings and Lord of 
lords.’ Some may deny that the Lord Jesus Christ is ‘the only Po¬ 
tentate.’ So here is some more Scripture from that good old prophet, 
Isaiah, who, above all others, prophesied of the coming of the Mes¬ 
siah. He says, speaking of the child unto us born and the son unto 
us given, ‘Of the increase of His government and peace there shall 
be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order 
it, and establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth 
even forever.’ 

“And Daniel, in speaking of Christ’s kingdom to be set up in 
the midst of the days, says of this kingdom that it ‘shall never be de¬ 
stroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, and it 
shall stand forever .’ 

“Daniel further says: ‘And I saw in the night visions, and 
behold, one like unto the Son of Man; . . . and there was given 

Him dominion and glory and a kingdom; . . . and His do¬ 

minion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his 
kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.’ 


SPIRITUAL SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 


307 


“And in Verse 27 he speaks of this kingdom as an ‘Everlasting 
Kingdom;’ and says that all ‘dominions shall serve and obey Him.’ 

“Then, Isaiah says: ‘His seed shall endure forever, and His 
throne as the sun before me.’ 

“And after prophets had spoken in the beginning, here comes the 
Revelator in the end, and says: ‘The kingdoms of this world are 
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall 
reign for ever and ever.’ 

“Now, then, papa,” queried the good wife, “which are we to 
believe, our good Methodist Brother Leftwich or David and Daniel 
and John and all of the Bible writers?” 

“Well,” said John, “however much we love and respect the 
good old Methodist preachers, we will believe the law and prophets 
and Gospel and Revelation before them.” 

“How could Brother Leftwich,” continued the wife, “make such 
a grievous mistake as to claim in the face of one hundred texts of 
Scripture that there would be an end of the kingdom of the Lord 
Jesus Christ?” 

“Why, this is very plain,” said John. “You see that the Metho¬ 
dists make ‘three persons’ in the Godhead, each, as they say, ‘very 
God.’ Of these three they say that the ‘Son’ is the second person. 
Their mistake is this, instead of making the Son a ‘person,’ a ‘very 
God,’ they should do as the Scriptures teach, that is, say that the 
Father is the soul, or essential Divine, from which all things come, 
and the Son is the human element by which all things are done, and 
that the ‘Holy Spirit’ is the Divine life proceeding from the Father 
and the Son, as a man’s power proceeds from his soul, or spirit, 
through his body, or, as the light and heat of the sun are ‘shed forth’ 
from the internal heat of the sun through the body of the sun as a 
medium or mediator. 

“What Paul meant was that, in order to assist man and to be 
‘at-one-ment’ with him, and to ‘help’ him ‘overcome’ all his foes, God 
clothed Himself with, or made for Himself, a human body called the 
Son; and in this human body, while battling on the human plane, we 
may say, as a ‘man,’ He overcame and subdued all the enemies of 
man. And He did this in His human body. He did this as ‘a man’ 
(being ‘very man’ on the outside, and ‘very God’ on the inside), so 
that man also might do what He did, He assisting man, as the Di¬ 
vine, or Father, or Soul, assisted the Son. 

“Just so soon as God in the flesh, or in the Son, or in His human 
nature, had put down all rule and all authority and power,’ then He 


308 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


put off the mere human, or all that He was clothed with from the 
human mother, Mary, and put on a Divine Human from God, even 
the Father, and thus began to exert power and rule as ‘the Mighty 
God and Everlasting Father.’ Yet He was the same Lord Jesus 
Christ whose kingdom shall endure as the sun in the heavens endures 
forever. 

“But as long as one professes to believe in more than one person 
—or in more than one God—he will never be able to see the meaning 
of such texts as that which Brother Leftwich endeavored to explain, 
yet so signally failed to do. You know that all orthodox churches 
have one person in the Godhead—‘the Son’—offered as a sacrifice to 
another person in the Godhead. This they call the ‘Vicarious Atone¬ 
ment,’ which is as great a mistake as and more hurtful than the mis¬ 
take of supposing that the kingdom of the Lord will have an end. 
They even pray to one ‘for the sake of’ another.” 

“Indeed,” said the wife, “there is great need for a ‘second com¬ 
ing’ of the Son of Man to a church or to preachers who are in such 
midnight darkness,—perhaps a greater need than for His coming at 
first.” 

Years after this, in far off Texas, John heard another dedicatory 
sermon from one of the leading D. D.’s of Texas, in which this good 
but not wise doctor took as a text: “The Lord is in His holy temple. 
Let all the earth keep silence before Him” (Habakkuk ii. 20). 

This D. D. called the wooden church structure, built of human 
hands, the ‘holy temple” that the prophet spoke of and ascribed as 
much “sanctity” to this wooden structure as he ascribed to the 
“temple not made with hands,” the body of the Lord in which He 
“manifested” on earth the indwelling and invisible God. Why, Hab¬ 
akkuk had just spoken of the unprofitableness of “wood” laid over 
with gold, but which had no breath, even as a wooden church struc¬ 
ture has no breath. Stephen was stoned, not by the Lord, but by a 
sensualized set of ecclesiastics for preaching that “the Most High 
dwelleth not in temples made with hands” (Acts vii. 48). And Paul, 
as stated in Acts xvii. 24, declared to the “ignorant” of Athens that 
“God dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” 

This good Texas D. D. was being swept away into the Romish 
error of ascribing more sanctity to an ecclesiastical building than to 
a home or other places. What more sanctity has one place than an¬ 
other ? It is true that both the Jews and the Romish Church worship 
even days, seasons, moons, and places. But the true Christian 
Church utterly repudiates all such things, and with very great reason 
repudiates them. 


SPIRITUAL SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 


309 


In order to get a great Christian apostle winnowed of the Jewish 
tares that still adhered to him through his Jewish heredity, the angel 
of the Lord had to let down from heaven a sheet full of all manner 
of four-footed, wild, and creeping things of earth, and all kinds of 
fowls of the air. At this vessel full of odds and ends the Jewish 
stomach of Peter revolted. But not so that of the angel. Hence 
the angel says to the Jew, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” And yet, after 
over nineteen hundred years of the preaching of Christian doctrine we 
find an Ecclesiastical rabbi, of even a John Wesleyan church, preach¬ 
ing about the “holiness” of one place over another, and preaching 
that the “living God” takes up His abode in “houses made with 
hands.” The next thing will be that Methodist priests will be 
preaching the doctrine of the woman at the well in Samaria, that it 
is necessary, in order to worship God, that “you-uns” must go up 
to the temple ai Jerusalem, and “we-uns” must go to the altars on the 
mountain tops of Samaria,—a doctrine which the Lord Himself ut¬ 
terly repudiated by saying that God is a Spirit and seeketh wor¬ 
shipers to worship Him “in spirit and in truth” in all places and in 
all things of life. 

The truth is that any one who is able to “discern the signs” will 
discover, in every preachment and prayer of the big ecclesiastical 
“Masters” and “Rabbis,” as to both doctrine and animus, things that 
absolutely necessitate the “coming” again or the second coming of 
the meek and lowly Son of Man to His own meek and lowly church. 
And when He comes He will again be rejected by His own! 

It was no idle query made by. the Lord when plaintively He in¬ 
quired, with a sad introductory,—“Nevertheless, when the Son of 
Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” 

That He will find no faith in Him as the “Everlasting Father,” 
which is His chief feature and the one in which all the hope of His 
children on earth is centered and dependent, will be seen from what 
follows, as well as from other thousands of things. 

For some thirty odd years John had been in the habit of asking 
ministers and “Amen Corner” members of the several ecclesiastical 
organizations three questions,—all Scriptural questions; and while all 
of them had invariably very glibly answered the first and second ques¬ 
tions, yet every one of them without exception either refused or failed 
to answer the third. Many have utterly repudiated even the idea con¬ 
tained in the third question. The solemn truth is that, where any 
so-called “orthodox minister” gives a correct Scriptural answer to 
the third question, he then and there admits what will inevitably over- 


310 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


throw and “not leave one stone upon another” in the structure of his 
entire so-called orthodox creed, or system of doctrine; and rather 
than repudiate the church creed, an ordinary ecclesiastic will repudi¬ 
ate the “Christ.” That this is so, we will ask our readers to prove it 
for themselves by doing as John has done for over these thirty years, 
—that is, submit for answer to the first one, two, or one hundred of 
“orthodox” ministers that you meet the following three questions: 

First. “How many Gods does the Bible proclaim?” This all 
will glibly and necessarily answer, “only one,” because this is de¬ 
clared in thousands of Scriptural texts. 

Second. “In how many texts of Scripture is the Lord Jesus 
Christ called and recognized as God?” To this all will answer, “In 
a great number.” The truth is that there is not a single place in the 
whole Bible where anything is said or predicated of God, that does 
not apply to the Lord Jesus Christ as the God or the feature of the 
God spoken of; for He Himself, after His resurrection, on the road 
to Emmaus, had an interview with some of His followers of which 
it is written : “x\nd beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He ex¬ 
pounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Him¬ 
self.” (See Luke xxiv. 28.) And He said: “All things must be 
fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, 
and in the Psalms concerning Him.” 

Third, “If there is but one God, and if the Lord Jesus Christ is 
this one God, where then is the Father?” 

The Scriptures declare the answer in a multitude of passages. 

“Blessed be thou, O Lord God of Israel, our Father forever and 
forever.” “Unto us a child is born and a son is given; whose name 
shall be called . . . the Everlasting Father;” “Thou, O Lord, 

art our Father and our Redeemer;” “Thou are my God, my Father, 
and the rock of my salvation;” “Lord, show us the Father. . . . 

Jesus said, Have I been so long a time with you, and yet hast thou 
not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. 
And how sayest thou, then, show us the Father?” Jesus had just 
said to Thomas, “If ye had known me, ye should have known my 
Father also, and from henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him." 
Paul calls Him that “descended and ascended” the “One God and 
Father of all.” Yet, notwithstanding all this, that in the Law and in 
the Prophets, and in the Psalms, and in the Epistles, and in the great 
final Book of “revealed things that must come to pass,”—notwith¬ 
standing that from all these high up hill countries comes witness after 
witness testifying with unanimous acclaim of the Lord Jesus Christ, 


SPIRITUAL SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 


311 


“Thou, O Lord, art our Father and our Redeemer,” when you ask of 
any and every “orthodox” minister a question that implies that the 
Lord Jesus Christ is “The Father” as well as Redeemer, then and 
there these so-called preachers of Christ in “all of His fullness” will, 
instead of answering straight from the shoulder, as Lawgiver, 
Prophet, Psalmist, Evangelist, and Revelator all answer, that He 
is not only the Son, not only the Redeemer, not only the Saviour, 
uot only the Almighty God, but He is also “The Everlasting Father,” 
instead of making this scriptural answer, they will begin to “wobble,” 
or prevaricate, or get confused, or grow angry, and jump the question. 
And then, if pressed, they will begin to feel the “truth” that all men 
feel when their errors or evils are exposed, and they will begin to do 
as stated in Revelation vi.16—what all the “captains” and “great and 
rich men” of an earthly sensual church will do when the Son of Man 
comes revealed in His true nature of Alpha and Omega, as God, 
Father, Son, Redeemer, All in All—they will begin to “hide” them¬ 
selves in some of the “dens” of their own misconstruction, or call 
on some of the “rocks” that they have hewed out and missculptured 
to “hide” them from the wrath of the Lamb. 

One will say : “Didn’t the Son pray to the Father? How then 
can it be said that the Son is the Father? Can one pray to himself?” 

Another will say : “Do not the Scriptures speak of three persons, 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? How then can one person be 
another ?” 

Another will say (and John has heard more than one make this 
Babylonish admission of mystery “written in the brow”) : “Why, 
the Bible is not a revelation, but a mystery, and we are not expected 
to understand, neither can we understand the things there stated.” 
And this notwithstanding Jesus said, “Blessed is he that heareth these 
•sayings and understandeth them.” And, strange to say, many will 
actually affirm, in the very face of a thousand scriptures, that there are 
'‘two Gods”—God the “Father” and God the “Son.” And some will 
go so far as to proclaim their traditions, or creed, for the Word of 
God, and say that there are “three—God the Father, God the Son, 
and God the Holy Spirit, “each very God”—and yet it is not “permis¬ 
sible to say that there is more than one God.” All of which any way¬ 
faring man will recognize as unmitigated midnight darkness and 
Babel building not excelled on the ancient plains of Shinar. 

Now, the first “den” that they seek to hide in is that the Son 
prayed to the Father. They overlook a thing that is, by precept on 
precept and line on line, often taught in the Scriptures, that in every 


312 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


man there are (not two persons, but) two natures,—the lower and 
the higher, the natural and spiritual, the outer and inner. David 
recognized this when he interrogated and exhorted his soul: “Why, 
art thou cast down, O my soul ? and why art thou disquieted within 
me? Hope thou in God.” Here he' addresses his own soul as 
“thou” in the language that implies a second person. But all know 
that there was no second person. And all should equally know that 
in the infirm human nature called the Son, with which the Lord 
clothed His Divine nature for earthly purposes, there was no second 
person who was supplicated, any more than there was in David’s 
case. It was merely an appeal of the lower nature in the Lord to the 
higher one,—of the human to the Divine. 

So, also, we find Paul in a dozen different statements showing 
this double nature in man,—the mind serving God, and the flesh 
serving sin, one thing in him doing good while another is doing evil, 
allowing one thing and doing another,—just the same as if He were 
two persons. In like manner when Jehovah assumed a human na¬ 
ture by incarnation in the Christ, there were two natures, not two 
persons. Paul himself spoke of these two natures in Jesus Christ 
when he said: “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, etc., for to 
make in himself of twain One new man.” What could be plainer 
than that? While there were two natures yet there was but “one 
man.” In fact, this making “of twain one” was the very u at-one- 
ment ,> itself concerning which “orthodoxy” is in such grievous mid¬ 
night darkness as to teach it as being a commercial transaction in 
which an angry God was paid a price to get Him to pardon His poor 
sin-stricken children. 

Then, again, there is not one single man, woman, or child who 
has ability to exercise that rational thought that enables a man to 
know himself who does not know of the double nature in his own 
person. It is folly to doubt this. And yet, notwithstanding the 
great expositors and writers of Scripture,—the Psalmist David and 
the Apostle Paul,—spoke of two natures that were not two persons, 
and notwithstanding every man has this witness in himself and 
knows that he himself is a veritable Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyl, and 
notwithstanding Lawgiver and Prophet and Psalmist and Apostle 
and Revelator, all declare that there is but one God, even the Father, 
and that the Lord Jesus Christ is this “Almighty God and Everlast¬ 
ing Father,” yet, in order to keep their ecclesiastical “gre’&t God Di¬ 
ana” from falling down, some of the so-called “orthodox” “silver¬ 
smiths” cry one thing and some another. It is a sad fact that it is 


SPIRITUAL SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 


313 


always the Demetriuses,—the high-priests, the elders, the rabbis, the 
ruling masters,—of some ecclesiastical craft that raise the cry, “Great 
is Diana of the Ephesians,” when old hoary error is in danger of 
tumbling down from its creedal pedestal,—for the common people, 
by which is meant those who do not “exercise dominion over others” 
as do the ruling ecclesiastical priests, hear new truths gladly and 
would adopt them were it not for the weakness in human nature, 
which in its dependence inquires, “Have any of the scribes done this 
or that?” Jesus Christ would never have been crucified if the com¬ 
mon people had had their way. The blood was not even on the gen¬ 
tile ruler, Pontius Pilate; but “on us and our children,” as cried the 
priests and rulers of the synagogue. 

Now, as to the other “dens” that the ecclesiastical captains seek 
to hide themselves in, as to the other rocks (rocks in a bad sense 
mean errors of doctrine) with which the “rich and great” men of 
orthodoxy seek to cover themselves, they are scarcely worthy of se¬ 
rious consideration. The idea that revelation is a mystery, and can’t 
be understood. The idea of more than one God. The idea that cer¬ 
tainly so many men cannot for ages follow after a lie. The idea 
that the age and generation of Babel builders has forever ceased. 

There is a special rock, or grievousi error, under which persons 
notably labor who refuse to hear the voice of the Son of Man at His 
second coming commanding them to “come out of Babylon.” This 
*rror is that the sporadic cases of what might be called “wandering- 
stars” are cited as examples of the fate of those who, disgusted with 
the extreme follies of a “fallen” church, go out from it in such utter 
^disgust that they even find more self-respect in being agnostics, or 
even infidels, than they do in a vain effort to say that they believe 
things preached by priests which neither the preacher nor hearer 
understands. 

Now, an agnostic or an infidel is apt to indulge in extremes of 
impiety in order to show his disgust for those who, still in Babylon, 
make and believe lies and are thereby damned with spiritual drunken ¬ 
ness. The fate of these “wandering stars” is enough to deter a timid 
person of fearful heart from ever emerging from the “dens” of a 
fallen Babylon. But there is as much difference between a person 
who “comes out of Babylon” on hearing the heavenly voice of an 
angel (the truth), saying to him, “Come out of her, my people,” 
and a “wandering star” of agnosticism or infidelity, as there was be¬ 
tween the apostles who heeded the call of Christ to come out of a 
fallen Judaism and follow Him, and the temple priests and pharisees 


314 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


who boastfully claimed to be the elect children of Abraham whilst 
unknowingly murdering the very God of Abraham. No star can be 
called wandering which revolves around the Lord Jesus Christ as the 
only Sun of Love, Light, and Life in all of the heavens. Such stars 
are those who revolve around the Lord Jesus Christ as the “only 
wise Cod’' to be worshiped in the days of the second coming. 

One reason why a “fallen” church perpetuates itself is because of 
attacks on it by those who have nothing better to offer in its place. 
But when a “fallen” church goes up against or alongside of the great 
motherly-hearted “ Woman clothed with the Sun;” then indeed does 
the “fallen one” appear in all her horrible beastliness, such as her 
drunken orgies of non-understandable “mysteries” and her horrible 
holocausts of the very bodies of men offered on the altars of Mars. 
For it is well known that this “fallen” woman—this degraded church 
—has since the days of the Council of Nice been preaching “mystery” 
instead of revelation, and since the days of the Roman war-dragon 
Constantine has been sowing to the sword with the vain expectation 
of reaping a harvest of “peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” 

Another’great rock, or error, under which as in a “den” those 
at ease in a “fallen” church seeks to hide themselves is that when 
they are called on to “come out of Babylon” they cry out, “Oh, only 
another sect;” being ignorant of the great truth that the coming of 
the Son of Man, as proclaimed in the Book of Revelation, is not to 
patch a new patch on an old garment, or to put a flagon of new 
wine into an old bottle, as Athanasius and Luther and Calvin and 
Wesley and Alexander Campbell sought to do ; but to preach Him 
• who, sitting upon the throne of heaven and earth, proclaims: “Be¬ 
hold, I make all things new!”—a new heaven and a new earth, a 
new church, even the great city or church of the New Jerusalem,, 
coming, not up from men, but down from God of heaven. 

The cry of “Sect,” at this coming church is as great an error as 
was the cry of Sect at the dispensation set up by the incarnated God 
at His first coming. 

Such, however, are the “dens,” such the “mountains and rocks,” 
that the “fallen” church captains and rich men and merchantmen of 
Babylon call to fall on them and hide them from “the face of Him 
that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the 
great day of His wrath has come. Who shall be able to stand ?” 

The “wrath” here spoken of is such as the man with weak eyes 
feels when the sun shines directly into his sore and blinded eyes, even 
as the sunshine is “wrathful” to the eyes of a bat when it gets out of 
its “den.” 


SPIRITUAL SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 


315 


Oh, no, no. As prophesied by Isaiah, the New Jerusalem—* 
the Church of the Second Coming that every eye*shall see—is not a 
mill pond where “galleys go with oars propelled” by men, but “there 
the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams 
wherein shall go no galleys with oars;” for there the Lord is our 
judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King, our “Al¬ 
mighty God,” our. “Everlasting Father.” 

The New Jerusalem—the New Church now coming as a conse¬ 
quence of the Second Coming of the Son of Man—is not a sect, but 
a distinct dispensation wherein love—love to the Lord and to the 
neighbor—is the beginning and the end, the Law and the Gospel. 

And the idea that such “dens” and “rocks” can again make void 
the array of Scriptures that declare that there is but one God and 
that the Lord Jesus Christ is this “only wise God our Saviour” and 
our “Everlasting Father!” 

The angels will certainly have great labor when the teeming 
millions of the blind that have been led by the blind come up to an¬ 
gelic colleges in the world of spirits to have the book of God’s truths 
opened, even as the mysteries of higher mathematics are opened to the 
minds of youth hi the universities of the world. Things are “done 
on earth as in heaven.” So the angels have schools for instruction. 

Elder Leftwich may preach the shocking heresy that the Lord 
Jesus Christ is to be dethroned, and Elder Nelms may contradict 
Stephen and Paul and Jesus, and preach the Romish heresy of the 
sanctity of wooden temples made with the hands of men; and Elder 
This and Elder That may preach up this “den” and that “rock,” hill 
and mountain, and Elder Andrew Monroe may accuse the John Coun¬ 
sellors who hold to the doctrine of “one Lord, one faith, one bap¬ 
tism ,” and all the elders be considered infallible and of good ecclesi¬ 
astical report; and as to John Counsellor, like the blind boy who was 
healed of blindness, when he essays to heal others, these chief priests 
and elders “revile him” and say “we know that this man is a sinner.” 

The reader may ask why it was, since John scarcely believed one 
church doctrine as laid down in the traditions of the Methodist 
ecclesiasticism, that he remained a minister in that church. 

To this three answers may be given: 

First, was not Christ baptized by a Jewish priest, and did He 
not continue to the end in ecclesiastical relation with the Jewish 
Church, notwithstanding that He knew that the Jewish Church had 
made the truths of the corqmandments of God void by its traditions ? 
He remained until he was rejected. 


316 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Second. Although John’s wife felt otherwise, yet, in some de¬ 
gree, he still believed that the church authorities would act in good 
faith and in accord with their own express law, as laid down in para¬ 
graph V, of Chapter I, Section I, of their declared Articles of Re¬ 
ligion and Rules, which reads as follows: “Holy Scripture con¬ 
tained all things necessary to salvation. So that, whatsoever is not 
read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any 
man that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought 
requisite or necessary to salvation.” In such words as the above, did 
not John have abundant reason to believe that he would be allowed 
to believe and preach anything that he knew that he could prove by 
scores of texts and principles of Scripture ? 

Third, John never claimed to be infallible, nor does he make 
this claim to-day. If he had started out in a “holy’* state and gone 
forward with “perfectness,” then a good many of his weaknesses and 
wobblings, and doublings of his tracks like the Israelites, in the 
wilderness, would not have been recorded. But what is written is 
history as it occurred. And it is well that weaknesses and wobblings 
and double back trackings do occur, so that others may not be de¬ 
terred by an unapproachable brightness of perfection. Perhaps many 
a good man, when he has fallen some seventy and seven times, would 
get discouraged were it not that the Bible shows the weaknesses of 
even Jacob in a cattle trade, and David with the wife of one of his 
captains away from home, and of the disciples in wanting high seats 
in the coming kingdom, in their readiness to call down fire on villag¬ 
ers who did not receive them, and who continuously were rebuked for 
selfish shortcomings, and told that “as yet there were many things 
that they could not bear.” If everybody mentioned in the Bible had 
been perfect to start with, then indeed would all latter-day starters 
for sainthood be discouraged to such an extent that they would never 
even start. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


THE DOCTRINE OF “EXPERIMENTAL” RELIGION, AND OF THE 
“RESURRECTION.” JOHN “ACCUSED OF HERESY.” 


“Feeling Happy” Not Regeneration—“Regeneration” Not Begun and 
Ended in a Minute—Regeneration Not a “Mushroom” Growth, but an 
Everlasting “Tree of Life.”—The Importance of “Small Things”—The 
Resurrection, What It is—Not of the Fleshly Body, but of the “Living 
Soul,” or of “Man as a Spirit”—However, “More Weighty” Things of 
Law and Gospel. 


Inasmuch as the Methodist Conference was approaching at 
which John was to see the materialization of his wife’s “prescience” 
of some bodeful event, it may be well enough to give a brief state¬ 
ment of one of the “heresies” of which he was accused. John never 
spoke of things of religion as “doctrines,” but as “Hows” and 
“Ways” and “Highways.” 

As stated by himself, the subject that we shall now notice is, 
“How to get Religion,” or, as he sometimes stated it, “The Way 
from Egypt to Canaan,” or, “Regeneration,—when Begun, how 
Carried on, and where Finished.” 

The Methodist idea of regeneration is that it is a kind of mi¬ 
raculous change that takes place at some particular tick of the clock, 
and that the favorite place for the occurrence of this convulsive 
change is the “Mourners’ Bench” during the excitement of some 
“protracted meeting.” • 

The way in which this miraculous and instantaneous and con¬ 
vulsive “change of heart,” described as “being born again,” or 
“regenerated,” or “passing from death to life,” is manifested, ac¬ 
cording to Methodist tradition, is that the “new-born babe” “feels 
happy,” or “feels forgiven,” “feels that all his sins are gone,” “feels 
like shouting aloud,” or perhaps the “feelings” are so excited that 
the convert does “shout aloud.” The latter is considered the most 
conclusive proof of being “born again.” In fact, there is hardly a 
word, or phrase, or sentence to be found in the entire Methodist 
nomenclature concerning “regeneration” that is not descriptive of 

( 317 ) 





318 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


the “feelings’’ as being the standard of knowing whether or not 
“Jesus Christ is in you.” And all this, too, in the face of such oft- 
repeated Scripture declarations as that “He that trusteth in his own 
heart is a fool,” and “The fool rageth (shouteth) and is confident.” 

They put the heart right in the lead in the face of the very 
first instruction given to mankind by Jehovah Himself after “the 
fall,” when it was said to the woman, who is typical of the “heart” 
of human nature, “Thy desire shall be unto thy husband, and he shall 
rule over thee,” the woman representing the heart and the man 
representing the head, and everybody, both man and woman, has 
the “heart” and “head.” 

Everybody knows that his “feelings,” or hot passions, should 
be subject to his cool judgment,—the head rule over the heart. 

Now, while this spasmodic and instantaneous and convulsive 
change from death to life is not universally believed in by Metho¬ 
dists, yet such is their “doctrine” on the subject of regeneration. 
And it is universally known that “protracted meetings” and “camp 
meetings” and “mourners’ benches” are the “occasions” and “places” 
and “means” at and through which “Methodism” relies in great 
part for its recruits to the service of God in the Methodist part of 
the Vineyard. 

After years and years of actual observation of such things, 
after years and years of careful reading of the Scriptures, and after 
years and years of doing what the apostle exhorted: “Examine your¬ 
selves whether ye be in the faith; prove yourselves. Know ye not 
your own selves now that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be repro¬ 
bate?” and after years and years of learning ‘■flhe invisible things” of 
God’s spiritual kingdom as seen by the things of His kingdom of 
nature, after connecting nature and the Scriptures and common 
sense and common observation, John considerately and calmly con¬ 
cluded that the doctrine of instantaneous and convulsive regenera¬ 
tion is unscriptural, unnatural, and delusive. Hence he preached 
that the natural life and the spiritual life in man begin sirhultan- 
eously. Whil,e the natural father and mother are the source of the 
natural fleshly nature, which is corrupt by heredity and is called 
the Adamic nature, within this nature—within this natural man— 
God, who is a Spirit, breathes a spiritual nature, and man is simul¬ 
taneously a natural being and a spiritual being, or a mere animal 
and a “living soul.” Now, the problem to be worked out is whether 
the man is to be led and moulded by the flesh, or led and moulded by 
the spirit. 


ACCUSATIONS OF HERESY. 


319 


John would declare to his congregation that there was not a 
single one of them, however depraved, that had not within him the 
“mustard seed,” the “hidden leaven,” the silver lost in household 
rubbish, the “smoking flax,” some “hunger,” some “thirst,” some 
little “affection” or “feeling,” or some little “thought,” appertaining 
to some person, place, or thing that is not altogether earthly and 
fleshly, but heavenly or spiritual. And he would proclaim that the 
only way to “get religion,” to “get to heaven,” to build up the king¬ 
dom of God within one is to settle down to work out one’s own sal¬ 
vation. This working out of one’s own salvation is like raising a 
crop. God gives the sunshine, God gives the soil, gives the early 
arid latter rain; but does not give the corn. Man, being co-worker 
with God, avails, himself of God’s gifts of soil, sun, and shower, and 
goes to work getting rid of weeds, etc., and planting, cultivating, 
and digging round about the crop. 

So, spiritually, God gives a little mustard seed, a little thought 
about the kingdom of God. Now, if one has the very “least” 
thought that there is a God, or that there is a “hereafter” in which 
he has a suspicion that perhaps he may live, the only thing neces¬ 
sary to insure this thought, this slight suspicion of a “perhaps” or 
a “maybe,” this least of all things,—the only thing for one having- 
such a suspicion to do> is to dig round about and cultivate the sus¬ 
picion, and it will “grow up” to become “the greatest” or dominat¬ 
ing thing of his whole life. And the way to cultivate such a sus¬ 
picion, such a seed of the kingdom of heaven, is to give more 
thought from day to day to the things which appertain to the spir¬ 
itual side of one’s nature, reading the Bible, hearing sermons, and 
thinking and doing this and that which may from time to time and 
from day to day come in one’s way. 

Turning from those in whom the thought life—the head— 
predominates, John would say that, if there is a man, woman, or 
child present who has the “smoking flax” of the kingdom of heaven 
within him, the only thing necessary to get this “smoking” fire to 
flare out into a great flame is to add fuel to it and fan it. He would 
then explain that fire is typical of love, and that if a man has the 
very least affection for anything right as against anything wrong, 
the least affection for that which is humane against that which is 
inhuman, the least affection for truth as against falsehood,—yea, 
the very latest affection for any person, place, or thing of “good re¬ 
port” as against persons and places and things of “evil report,”— 
such person has in such affection the elements of the great baptism of 


320 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


fire, has within him the love which is the fulfillment, is the end, 
is the life of all Law and of all Gospel. And the only thing neces¬ 
sary to make this “smoking" fire “go on" into a great furnace of 
fire in the heart, is to add, from day to day, fuel to it and fan it un¬ 
til it gets so hot that it needs no fanning. 

That “love" feeds on thoughts and on acts,—that the more you 
think of God and of good the more you will love them, and the more 
you do the commandments of God the more you will not only love 
these commandments, but the more will you enter into the life of 
the love enjoined by such commandments. For the way to enter 
into life is to keep the commandments incident to such life. Natur¬ 
ally, if a man practices honesty, he will enter into the life of hon¬ 
esty. So also spiritually, as Christ always illustrated spiritual things 
by natural ones, and the apostle said that “the invisible" appears 
from the “visible." 

John would exhort that A don't want to get into B’s shoes be¬ 
fore he makes a start, saying that the kingdom of heaven is like 
the city described in Revelation, with not only three gates, but with 
three gates on each and every side. So that no man on the south 
side need wait to get into the footsteps of any man on the north 
side, or any of those on the west and east sides; but every man starts 
exactly from where he finds himself, whether with a “mustard seed" 
of thought, or a “smoking flax" of affection, or a “bruised reed" of 
trying in the least to live a better life. Knowing that so many men 
defer making a start in a new life until they can “get better," or get 
more strength, or more something or other, he explained, in this 
connection, such scriptures as, “Now is the accepted time." “To¬ 
day, if ye will hear, etc., the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 

There were two points John particularly emphasized and urged 
upon his hearers, One, start now, just exactly with what you have 
and what you are. The start is a mere deciding to live a better life, 
or think about a better life, to cease now from some evil for “Christ’s 
sake," to begin to learn some good to do, to think or love any least 
thing enjoined by Scripture. The other, under no circumstances 
should any one expect to get to any place, or condition of life, simul¬ 
taneously with starting for such place. It takes a whole lifetime on 
the earth for any one to “work out his salvation" and “to make his 
calling and election sure." In fact, for the purpose of making our 
“calling and election sure," life, the whole of life, with everything 
of life, was given. Hence people should not be discouraged as long 
as they have a “mustard seed" of thought, or a “smoking flax" of 


ACCUSATIONS OF HERESY. 


321 


affection, or a “bruised reed” of trying to live better. And, if the 
person having such things so wills, all the power of the world and 
flesh and devil cannot eventually keep the mustard seed from grow¬ 
ing from “the very least to the very greatest” of all things of life 
on earth and in heaven. 

Another point John always specially urged. And that was not 
to be always hunting around for a big job to do ; but to do the thing 
that you find yourself right “up against,” taking no thought of big 
jobs of to-morrow, but giving all attention to the little things just 
at hand, whether those things consist of a kind word, a pleasant smile, 
or a little helpfulness to the one with whom you are associated,—in 
fact, not to wait to go up to Jerusalem to the temple, nor to the al¬ 
tars on the mountains of Samaria, to worship God—to do a good act; 
but whenever and wherever one finds himself, then and there he 
should do the things of the “then” and the “there.” The “kingdom 
of heaven is at hand” means this! 

Doing this way, the old Samaritan was preferred and com¬ 
mended by the Great Judge over both priest and Levite, who passed 
by a very meritorious job in the Lord’s vineyard to hunt up a sup¬ 
posed bigger one down at Jericho. 

Perhaps John was more explicit and urgent on the point of “Chris¬ 
tian experience” than on any other. He insisted that “experimental 
religion” does not consist in the recollection of some time at a camp 
meeting, or other time and place of arousement, where one has gone 
through some little excitement of “feeling happy,” and believing and 
calling this “feeling” being “born again,” “born of God,” or any other 
kind of birth; but the real “experimental religion” consists in carry¬ 
ing your religion into each and every experience of life, such as a 
“horse trade,” or giving in property for assessment of taxes, or poli¬ 
tics, or war, or buying and selling things, being particular to place 
no greater estimate on the valup of a thing when you wish to sell 
it than when you wish to buy it. 

“These things,” he would say, “ye ought to do, and not leave 
undone any greater ones, such as praying, being baptized, going to 
church, etc., whenever these bigger things come to hand without 
being hunted up with the idea that they have to be done before you 
do the daily little things that are daily ‘up against’ you.” 

John, very early in his Christian career, concluded that most 
big things were made up of little ones,—that even the kingdom of 
heaven starts within every one from a mustard seed. Hence he em¬ 
phasized the importance of small things, the importance of “driving 


322 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


out the heathen little by little,” of the line on line and precept on pre¬ 
cept way of learning,—always concluding, “Don’t expect to get 
there before you start/’ 

He thus kept the gates of Gospel grace open night and day. He 
did not wait for protracted meetings and camp meetings to “get re¬ 
ligion,” but urged on all men to use what God Almighty had al¬ 
ready given to them,—that is, to thought add thought, to affectional 
impulse for good add other affections. And this can be done on 
the principle of he that hath a talent and uses it unto him more is 
given. The more you think of God in heaven and righteousness of 
life, the more will your thoughts of and affections for these things 
be increased, and more especially where you put your thoughts into 
acts, and seek to satisfy the hunger of your love by feeding upon or 
obeying the commandments and precepts of God. 

In living such a life, a great estate of heavenly truths would be 
laid up as treasures in the heaven of the mind, a great furnace of 
love would be kindled in the heaven of the heart, and an opportunity 
for continual employment every day in the year would be opened 
up day by day for work for our daily bread. 

So John, like Philip, baptized eunuchs by* the wayside, and 
preached in every household, and took people into the church at 
all stages in their life from the first to the eleventh hour. Hence, 
on every “work” he had, “believers were the more added to the 
Lord, both of men and women daily/’ 

While carrying on this daily campaign of small things, at proper 
seasons there would break out a kind of Pentecostal gale in which 
many ships of individual life would rush into the havens of salva¬ 
tion. But John knew that where there is one day of Pentecostal 
rush, there must be a thousand of every-day push-and-pull through 
a kind of trackless wilderness that stretches with a forty years’ 
stretch from the starting-point of all in Egypt and the end point of 
all in Canaan. There are so many “every days!” And he would 
explain that the death of all the Israelites who started out of Egypt 
before they got into Canaan, or heaven, did not signify that those 
who make a start shall fail to get in; but signified that before the 
“end of regeneration” is attained, we “must die” to every thought 
of error and to every affection of evil, which all recognize as a job 
that could not be done up in a convulsive spasm at any particular 
tick of the clock; but takes a good long lifetime of “eschewing evil 
and learning to do good,” and even then will need, in the world of 
spirits, the world of judgment, the assistance of good and wise an- 


ACCUSATIONS OF HERESY. 


323 


gels to separate the tares from the wheat in the field of our lives, 
such as we all carry with us into the other world. 

Such was John’s idea and preachment of “experimental re¬ 
ligion,”—a kind of experience that begins with the natural man, 
in an endless increment of knowledge, wisdom, love, and power. 

For failing to preach that the “resurrection” consists in the 
“raising up” of the natural, fleshly body after it has lain in the grave 
or been eaten up by worms and corruption for thousands of years, 
and in plastering this corrupt body of flesh and bones and blood on 
to a living soul, for failing to preach such more than sensual and 
materialistic error, and instead preaching that, when a man’s natural 
body dies, this body returns to the dust, of which dust material it 
was made, while the spirit, which is the real “living soul” or person, 
goes to God, being “clothed on from heaven” by a spiritual body, 
John was esteemed a heretic. This resurrection, or being “revived” 
and “raised up,” takes place, not at some unfixed time away down the 
ages yet to come, but, as stated by the Prophet Hosea, “After two 
days will He revive us: in the third day will He raise us up, and we 
shall live in His sight.” 

For preaching this “to-day” kind of resurrection and salvation 
from the grave,—yea, for preaching Christ’s doctrine of the resur¬ 
rection, as opposed to that of the Jewish woman, Martha, as stated 
in the Gospel, John was not considered “orthodox” or “Methodis- 
tic,” but something or other that made him deserving of rejection. 
It was for this “unorthodoxy” on the subjects of “the resurrection” 
and of “experimental religion” that he was accused of heresy. 

It is true that, so opposed was he to' leaving the ecclesiasticism 
of his forefathers, had he not radically differed from the traditions 
or teachings of Methodism on “'more weighty things of Law and 
Gospel,” he would perhaps not have insisted so strenuously on 
these lighter things of anise, mint, and cummin,—lighter things at 
least compared with the serious question of “the fullness of the God¬ 
head in the Son of Man,” and the appalling fact that now is the 
time of the ‘"second coming” of this .Son of Man, with all the effects 
<of His coming. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


JOHN’S LAST “CONFERENCE,” AND WHAT TOOK PLACE. 


‘‘Conference” Comes on—John’s Experience of “Earthquakes,” etc.— 
To “Shorten Those Days,” John is Providentially Kept Away from Con¬ 
ference—The Action of Conference on His Case—A Kind of Joseph of 
Arimathea as Chairman of the “Investigating Committee”—John Asks to 
be Tried by the Bible Standard, and Not by that of Methodist Tra¬ 
ditions—This Reasonable Request Kindly "Side-Tracked” Along With 
John Himself. 


“Conference” is one of the gala occasions for Methodist 
preachers. Perhaps a bridegroom scarcely looks forward to his 
bridal day with more pleasurable anticipations than does the itiner¬ 
ant Methodist preacher to conference. Here they meet old friends 
and colaborers. Plere they hear the great and beloved, much rev¬ 
erenced and implicitly obeyed bishop. Here they undergo that pain¬ 
fully pleasurable excitement of uncertainty that gamblers experience 
in .games of chance where there are large things at stake. The 
preachers to all intents and purposes have their very “homes” at 
stake. With John, however, the conference day loomed up as a 
kind of day of judgment. Inasmuch as he was experiencing all 
kinds of spiritual earthquakes, and seeing one old set of things roll¬ 
ing up like a scroll and giving way to an entirely different set, his 
sun, moon, and stars ecclesiastically were not of the calm spring¬ 
time shine and sparkle. 

It was somewhat of a dark and rainy day in the December of his 
church life. It was a bodeful and discouraging looking “evening,” 
whatever the “morning” after it might be.’ The wars and rumors of 
wars between the ideas and things of the old earth and the new earth 
filled his mind, and the jealousies between the loves of the old and 
new heavens made his heart to some extent fail with fear and tremb¬ 
ling. In fact, there took place in the life,—in the mind life, in the 
heart life, in the actual life,—of John Counsellor, in greater or less 
degree and measure, every one of the things that are set forth in 
the twenty-fourth chapter of Mattheiv as being incident to the second 
coming of the Son of Man! 

( 324 ) 





John's last conference and what took place. 325 

But, with a faithful wife at his side, with ten thousand Scrip¬ 
ture truths being trumpeted in his ears,—through the darkness, 
through the pestilence, through the famine and the tumult of earth¬ 
quakes in divers places,—through all of these, he heard a still small 
voice saying, “Let not your heart be troubled,” “For the elect’s sake 
these days shall be shortened.” Athwart all this chaos of gloom 
shot sparks of light or lightning from east to west, succeeded by 
darkness. 

So John never looked backward. Being in the field, he never, 
went back to take his old clothes; and being on the house top—where 
all are who see the coming of the bright Morning Star afar off in 
the east,—he did not come down to take anything out of his old 
house. As a matter of course, all these things were spiritual trans¬ 
actions connected with a spiritual transaction that will sooner or later 
overtake all persons who are not permanently wedded to “midnight 
darkness,” and but few, let us believe, are so wedded. Either in 
this or in the world of spirits, as shown in the Book of Revelation, 
“every eye shall see this coming of the Son of Man,” and those that 
“endure unto the end” will also see the coming down from heaven, 
as a consequence of this coming of the Son of Man, of a beautiful 
four-squared city with gates on every side and in which there is 
“no night,” no mere flickering of candle light;, for they “need no 
candle” nor even light of sun, “but the Lord God giveth them 
light, because “He is the Light of the world.” And as to all manner 
of fruit trees yielding their fruit every month, these trees testify that 
all who give up the old will find much more and better fruit in the 
new heaven and the new earth. 

One way of “shortening” those days, and at the same time 
avoiding a “scene” which would be so distasteful to the refined and 
cultured taste of John’s wife, occurred in this wise: The place of 
the conference was Columbia, which was somewhat over on the Mis¬ 
souri River side of the State, while John’s present home was over on 
the Mississippi River side. The distance by buggy travel across 
the State was about one-fourth what it was by steamboat and rail¬ 
road. Now, John’s finances were somewhat shortened, as pretty 
much are the finances of all itinerant preachers; so he concluded to go 
to conference in his buggy “across the country,” and perhaps board 
along the route at the “Preachers’ Homes.” But the very day that 
John had set to start it rained, and kept on raining every day up to 
the very one that John should have arrived at conference. So, seem¬ 
ingly, he was providentially kept away from conference. At least 


326 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


he didn't go, and he always thought that it was well enough that 
he did not; for it is possibly true that the kind Father spares his 
children all things of humiliation that are possible. And there were 
several things that would have been humiliating at Columbia to 
John’s sensibilities. The place of the conference was the seat of the 
State University where John had graduated, only eleven years be¬ 
fore, with the highest honor of his class. Also here lived some of 
the patrician friends of his wife. For him to come to this place, and, 
instead of occupying some of the pulpits of the great ecclesiastical 
temples, to be found occupying the prisoner’s dock as a “heretic” 
under ecclesiastical accusation and indictment of good and lawful 
ecclesiastical elders and rabbinical rulers who exercise authority and 
dominion over all the other brethren, this might have been too much. 
Besides, John was a little too hot-headed as yet to submit dumbly, 
in an altogether lamb-like spirit, to shearers shearing him in public. 
Perhaps this public shearing might have ended in a “scene” of the 
sort that generally follow heresy hunts—scenes that are neither 
creditable to the shearers nor to the “sheared.” However, this latter 
is merely problematical; for no one had any bad feeling against John, 
nor did he have any, in the very least, against any one in any wise 
connected with the conference. 

Here is about what took place in his case, as reported to him 
by a brother preacher who was present at conference. The roll-call 
for a report on the character and the labors of all who were candi¬ 
dates for orders was taken up. In due course John’s name was 
called, to ascertain “whether or not there be any complaint against 
him.” At this point it was the duty of the presiding elder to make 
answer, and his elder, Rev. Andrew Monroe, rose and said substan ¬ 
tially : 

“In this case I confess I am much bothered as well as pained. 
Brother Counsellor is not at conference, and I do not know why. 
During the year his labors for the church have been incessant and 
peculiarly successful. Hundreds of members have been added to the 
church under his ministrations, and several church buildings erected. 
His kindly, brotherly, charitable spirit has been marked, and is unex¬ 
ceptionable. All the financial interests of the church have been well 
attended to and sustained. But I am pained to say that Brother 
Counsellor is not free from the suspicion, if not the actual charge, on 
the part of some of the preachers, of being unsound as to certain 
Methodist doctrines. Among those on which he is accused of being 
unsound is experimental religion, and another is the doctrine of 


John's last conference and what took place. 327 

the resurrection, and some others of which just now the accusation is * 
not very definite. In the absence of Brother Counsellor I hardly 
know what to recommend in his case.” 

Here som£ brother minister, perhaps Brother Joe Pritchett, re¬ 
marked that he knew Brother Counsellor, and would confirm all that 
his elder had said about his good works and about his exception- 
ably good spirit. While he had heard some indefinite rumors of some 
doctrinal ‘‘taints,” yet he would suggest that no hasty action be taken 
on such a case as this. Let the whole matter be referred to a commit¬ 
tee to be selected by the bishop, and let this committee, at its earliest 
convenience, have a friendly consultation with the accused brother, 
and recommend such action as they may deem best; and, in the mean 
time, let his presiding elder be authorized to give Brother Coun¬ 
sellor work within the bounds of the conference, provided the elder 
and the committee thought that the giving of such work would not 
be contrary to the interests of the church and the cause of Christ. 

This suggestion was unanimously agreed to by the conference. 
The bishop appointed Rev. Joseph H; Pritchett as chairman of 
this committee. It might be well to remark that, while no one in pub¬ 
lic speech accused John in any wise harshly, yet in the “council” of 
the bishop and elders there was a good deal of sentiment as well as 
talk of the stern necessity in all cases where preachers did not fit the 
Methodist bed, or cover their ministerial proportions with Methodist 
coverlets, that one of two things .must be done, either that all grow¬ 
ing length of limb had to be ceremonially amputated or the possessor 
of such limbs be ceremoniously indicted, tried, and cast out. Any 
idea of lengthening the bed to suit the growing soul and body of a 
growing child of a living God was considered ‘‘heresy,” if not actual 
treason to Methodism. Any child who felt with the apostle that he 
was made after the power of an endless life, and felt that pulse beat 
of endless progression along the lines of which it is said that Jesus 
Himself “increased,”—that is, in “wisdom and stature,”—must be 
smothered or cast away. 

“Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, 
and is like unto a man (not like a mummy, or stock, or stone) that is 
a householder which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new 
and old,” such a scribe, such a grower in wisdom and stature, had to 
be fitted to the Methodistic bed and covered with the Methodist 
counterpane, or—well—why, get out of bed, yes, out of the house, 
—yes, go out, even in the winter time, unto the wilderness. This 
was exactly John's status. He had grown in wisdom and in stature, 


328 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


and consequently to some extent “in favor .with God and man.” As 
a scribe, he became a householder that “brought forth things new and 
old” out of the great granaries of truth stored up in God’s Word, 
and—yes, “Woe unto him,”—his “flight” out of the “old” to find the 
“new” had been “in the winter,” while that of his wife had been 
from a summer time “field.” The difference was this: John had 
spent his spring time and summer days of youth as a proselyte to 
dogmas that made him sevenfold a child of an ecclesiastical Babylon, 
while of his wife it seemingly could be said, as of the New Jerusalem 
“Zion,” that she was “born in her/’ and that she was one of the 
singers as well as one of the “players on instruments” who had all of 
her “springs” in the one Lord of Zion. 

Well, like all earthly things, conference had come and gone. 
But there was the committee out on a still hunt for either John or 
heresy apart from John, for, it must be truly written, no one seemed 
to have any but the best of feeling for John himself. 

The preacher, Brother Tarwater, who, at Liberty in i860, had 
taken John and Em into his little church, now came to turn John 
out from the old Clarksville parsonage. John retired, on furlough 
for the present, to a fruit farm out on the turn-pike leading from 
Clarksville to Paynesville. 

The conference committee did not “summon,” but soon kindly 
requested John to “meet them in consultation at Florence.” There 
was yet some “failing of heart” on John’s part,—some leafless boughs 
and fruitless trees caused by his “flight in the winter,”—but, with a 
kiss from his wife and with an open Bible, he went and made reply 
to the committee in a very courteous but courageous and cheery tone. 

On the morning of a most lovely Indian Summer day in October, 
1869, he met the committee. Two of them had the bearing toward 
him of those who commiseratingly “did esteem him stricken, smitten 
of God, and afflicted” with a mild species of insanity, or obsessed of 
a devil. Not so with the good Brother Pritchett. He had no senti¬ 
mental commiseration for those who are “despised and rejected of 
men,” nor contempt for a “man of sorrows,” or scorn for “one ac¬ 
quainted with grief,” but rather had feeling of sympathy for a 
brother who looks lonely because “there is none to help,” and in his 
wonderment that there are “none to uphold” him looks around with 
a far-away appeal for sympathetic companionship, feeling, if not say¬ 
ing, “Wilt thou also leave me?” 

Now, to any one in this winter day vintage of affliction and of 
grief and sorrow, Brother Pritchett, if he perchance did not have 


John's last conference and what took tlace. 


329 ' 


that knowledge and that courage of conviction that would lead him 
to say, “Thou, O brother, shalt not tread the wine-press alone/’ yet, 
like his namesake of Arimathea had some kindly preference that 
John should not be altogether numbered with transgressors, and that 
he should have at least a kindly sort of burial. 

, Even such little loving-kindnesses as this are never forgotten 
or left behind ; because in every man there is that like unto the jewels 
of silver and gold which the Hebrew women borrowed of their neigh¬ 
bors and never returned, but ever kept for their own use. Hence, as 
chairman of the committee, Brother Pritchett avoided using any 
harsh words whatever. He eschewed all spirit of a high-priest seek¬ 
ing “only to accuse.” 

The committee met, and John met with it. Without stating 
anything whatever as to either indictment or charge against him, he 
was requested to make a statement of whatever he might please to 
say. The chairman knew, perhaps, that in this way the committee 
would get more light and a more exact and true idea of the state of 
things than they could possibly do by any summoning of witnesses, 
or by any inquisitional cork-screw process of cross-examination. 
The chairman knew that John knew more than any and all accusing 
witnesses, and that he had the courage of his convictions to tell all 
that he knew. At least this was indicated by the action of the chair¬ 
man, so John said: 

“Brethren, right in the beginning of a proceeding such as we 
are now engaging in, which proceeding is an investigation as to 
whether I am altogether, as a Methodist minister, sound in Chris¬ 
tian doctrine, all must admit that it is absolutely necessary for us 
first to determine by what standard the accused shall be tried or 
measured. Because without a measure no man can be intelligently 
measured; without some definite law no man can be either acquitted 
or condemned. Now, if I am to be tried by the following consti¬ 
tutional law enacted by the highest authority known to Methodism, 
then I am ready for trial on any and every doctrine that I have ever 
preached in pulpit or entertained in the closet. I will read the 
klethodist Law as follows: Chapter I, Articles of Religion and 
General Rules, Section I, Paragraph V, of Methodist Discipline, 
says : ‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation ; so 
that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is 
not required of any man that it should be believed as an article of 
the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.’ 


330 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“But if I am to be accused, tried, and sentenced under a code 
commonly known as ‘the standards of the church,’ which in final an¬ 
alysis is only another name for ‘the traditions of the elders,’ then I 
will say in advance that for two conclusive reasons any trial whatever 
is absolutely unnecessary. 

“In the first place, all history makes it manifest that when any 
householder in any ecclesiastical familyhood endeavors to bring 
forth out of spiritual treasures things that are ‘new’ as well as ‘old,’ 
any trial results in the foregone conclusion that nothing ‘new’ is to 
be tolerated. All the growth of the ages is to be lopped off to 
suit the bed that is ‘shorter than that a man can stretch himself on 
it.’ The accused must shrivel up so as to be covered with the cover¬ 
ing that is no wider ‘than that he can wrap himself in it.’ 

“All intelligent people know that, when any measure is meas¬ 
ured by the traditions of the elders, while such measurement will 
come up to the ‘standards’ of the church elders, yet it always fails to 
come up to the cords that are ever lengthening and to the stakes 
that are ever strengthening with the pulse beat of the power of end¬ 
less life such as throbs in the bosom of the living law of the living 
God. 

“When we consider how church traditions are formed, and how 
the living word of the only wise God is written, all can recognize 
the folly of procedure under the one and the wisdom of judging 
by the other. 

“You know, brethren, that the Jews, through their traditions, 
made the original commandments of 'God absolutely void by a pro¬ 
cess similar to that by which all ecclesiasticisms are finally catalogued 
in the list of the ‘fallen—Babylon is fallen,’ fallen far away from the 
original truth of God. 

“The Jewish Talmud was the book in which was written the 
‘opinions’ of Jewish scribes and elders, while the Bible is ‘The Book,’ 
the great, great book, that writes down and reveals the great truths 
of Him who is ‘The Truth’ itself. 

“The Talmud grew by Scribe No. i saying what Moses said that 
God said; and then Scribe No. 2 saying that Scribe No. 1 said that 
Moses said that God said; and No. 3 saying that it was his opinion 
that No.2 said that No. 1 said that Moses said that God said so and so. 
Then comes the fourth addition by way of tradition to the effect that 
Scribe No. 4 says that No. 3 said that it was his opinion that No. 2 
said that it was his opinion that No. 1 said that it was his opinion 
that Moses said that God said this, and not that. And so, up to the 


John's last conference and what took place. 331 

time of the Saviour, this traditions-of-the-elders industry had manu¬ 
factured some forty-odd volumes of church standards, or traditions, 
in which Scribe No. 40 had given as his ‘opinion’ that Scribe No. 
39 had an ‘opinion’ that Scribe No. 38 had said that it was his opinion 
that Scribe No. 37 was of the opinion, etc., etc., etc., until the 
•opinion chain became so tiresome to investigate from No. 40 down 
through all the links to No. 1, that men in weariness of spirit took 
the ‘opinion’ of No. 40 as the opinion of God, without any examina¬ 
tion. Every edition of opinion, as a matter of course, like l^arsay 
evidence, got farther away from the truth,—from the truth of Him 
who only is the Truth. So, if I am to be tried by the Methodistic 
Talmud, by the ‘traditions’ or ‘standards’ of the Methodist ecclesi¬ 
astical elders, then I will plead guilty in advance of not believing 
scarcely a thing that they at the present day hold in their traditions. 

“If I dissented from Methodist traditions only on the two points 
of doctrine on which I understand I am accused of being ‘unsound’ 
or ‘tainted’ with heresy,—that is, as to ‘experimental religion’ and as 
to whether ‘the great resurrection’ is that of a man’s corrupt body, or 
of the man himself as a living soul being raised up in a spiritual body 
into a world above the earth,—as to these I could perhaps afford 
to forbear for harmony’s sake to speak outside of what Wesley and 
Watson and other elders say. But there are some things of primary 
and essential Christian doctrine concerning which I so radically differ 
from the traditions of the Methodist elders, that I find it impossible 
to be silent about them any longer. And, while I am confident that 
all of the doctrines which I believe can, in the language of your fifth 
article of religion, be ‘read’ in and ‘proved’ by explicit texts of Scrip¬ 
ture without number, written in the Law and in the Prophets, in the 
Psalms and in the Gospels, in the epistles and in the symbolism of 
what was seen and heard by the ‘chosen apostle of God’ who was 
‘m the spirit on the Lord’s day’ and heard a great voice as of a 
trumpet saying, ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, and 
what thou seest write in a book,’—while I say that I believe the doc¬ 
trines of which I speak can be ‘read’ in and ‘proved’ by thousands of 
witnesses speaking from all the above named heavenly sources, yet 
I kncnv that they are not Methodistic! 

“Hence, as I said, if I am to be tried by the traditions of Metho¬ 
dism, I plead guilty without trial; and so, however painful it may 
be, let the affair be shortened without any further application of the 
sponge wet with vinegar. 


332 ‘ JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

“But if i am to be tried ancl tested and adjudged by the Holy 
Scriptures, as written by Moses and Elias and David and Matthew 
and Mark and Luke and John and Peter and Paul and the man who 
was ‘in the spirit on the Lord’s day/ then I am ready to'proceed; for 
I have all these witnesses present to put oil the stand in my behalf. 

“In conclusion, I will say that I think it due to all concerned 
that I mention a few of the truths in which I believe, and which all 
men must admit are in radical opposition to the traditions of Metho¬ 
dism. These I will mention, then, in the order of their importance. 
The first is that there is but one God and that the Lord Jesus Christ 
is this only wise God our Saviour. This truth necessarily involves 
that all worship should be of the Lord Jesus Christ who is ‘the Al¬ 
mighty God/ the ‘Everlasting Father/ and the ‘Prince of Peace/ 
and that all prayer should be directed to Him, not for the sake of an¬ 
other, but because to Him, as our heavenly Father, ‘is the kingdom, 
the power, and the glory for ever and ever/ That what He does for 
us is not on account of some ‘price paid to Him’ by another; but on 
account of His own Name or Nature’s sake, which is the nature of a 
Father towards His sick-unto-death children. That what He does 
in the way of forgiveness is not because He has been bought off 
or appeased by some horribly brutal and bloody sacrifice; but we ex¬ 
pect sympathy and help from Him, even as a sick and helpless child 
would expect help from its mother, knowing that the ‘mercies and 
multitudes of loving kindnesses’ of the mother are but drops as com¬ 
pared with the oceans of ‘the loving kindnesses of the Lord.’ 

“The second doctrine is that now is the day of the second com¬ 
ing of the Son of Man, when all things of the church earth, or doc¬ 
trine, and of the church heaven, or life, are to be made ‘new.’ The 
Prince of Peace is no longer to share in a divided worship with the 
dragons and the serpents and the bloody beasts of war. 

“The third is that the Holy Scripture is the Word of God in 
which there is a living spirit, and that the Scripture must be spirit¬ 
ually discerned so that men as spirits may learn and be armed by 
the spiritual truths and laws taught therein; and that the very prin¬ 
ciples established by these laws on earth are also established in the 
heavens. Hence that men and women will be real people in heaven 
as they are on earth, with no difference except that in heaven they 
have heavenly or spiritual bodies, while on earth they have earthly 
bodies; that this earthly body at death is put off forever and ‘returns 
to the dust,’ while the man, as a spirit in a spiritual body, is ‘raised 
up’ or resurrected into the spiritual world. 


John's last conference and what took place. 


333 


“The fourth doctrine is that religion does not consist in mere 
‘temple worship,’ but in loving and obeying God the best you can, 
and loving and serving your neighbor (everybody whom oppor¬ 
tunity offers) the same as you would like to have any one help you 
when occasion occurs. 

“Now, as matter of course, you will all see that if these truths 
are admitted the whole so-called ‘orthodox’ plan of salvation falls, 
scarcely one stone adhering to or being left on top of another. That 
is, while there may be some segregated truth here and there in the 
‘orthodox’ church creeds, yet as a whole there is no true,Christian sys¬ 
tem whatever,—which is meant by ‘not one stone is left on another.* 
Every creed of every church may contain some segregated truth 
represented by stone; but these ‘stones’ do not cohere as a system. 

“It is true, brethren, that the doctrine of the Godhead and of 
the second coming of the Son of Man are doctrines of such far- 
reaching importance that no conscientious minister should hold his 
peace about them. And I confess that at present I am only in the 
‘light of the first day’ about them. But I believe that if I follow on 
to know I shall soon know or see the light of the sun, moon, and stars 
that characterize the ‘fourth day,’ or fourth state of regeneration. 
I am not willing to quit following on along the lines of these great 
central highways from darkness to light, from death spiritual to ever¬ 
lasting life, even though I know that such following on will lead me 
out of the wfflderness of Methodism, which I confess will be the 
case, though I go out with grief and sorrow and affliction; because 
even the Master had these in His being ‘lifted up, so that He might 
with great power draw all men unto Him.’ 

“If,” concluded John, “I am to be tried by the Bloly Scriptures, 
I am ready for trial; but if I am to be tried by the church standards 
of Methodism, or the traditions of Wesley and Watson, then I plead 
guilty, and will take the consequences.” 

The committee then retired for consultation, and in a short time 
reported to John through their chairman, Brother Pritchett, by 
verbal report substantially as follows: 

First, that as Methodists all trials must be held under Methodist 
standards; but, 

Second, that the committee are very unwilling that there should 
be any trial, and think that it .can be avoided by you taking more 
thought and giving more investigation to the subjects of differences, 
and, in the mean time, to cease from any public discussion or ex- 


334 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


pression of opinion about the controverted points of doctrine; and* 
in this case, we will recommend that the presiding elder give you 
work, if you so desire. 

Thereupon Jolpi said to Brother Pritchett: 

“To be honest, I will say that I believe any further investiga¬ 
tion of the matters of which I have spoken will only end in my more 
firmly believing them. So I think that I would better, once for all, 
withdraw from the conference and from the entire Methodist con¬ 
nection.’' 

“This,” Brother Pritchett said, “might be hasty. So, I advise 
you not to do so.” 

“I will do this,” said John; “I will go home, and buy some 
books that I have never read, and study the things as to the ‘fullness 
of the Godhead of Christ’ and as to this being the day of the second 
coming, and just as soon as I finally make up my mind clearly, with¬ 
out any doubt at all, I’ll let your committee know. However, in the 
mean time, I’ll not accept of any work. This I could not conscien¬ 
tiously do.” 

The railroad train was about due, so after hasty and friendly 
handshaking between John and the committee, he left for the last 
time a meeting of Methodists with which he had any organic or ec¬ 
clesiastical relation. He went home and was greeted at the gate 
by his faithful wife. They walked hand in hand into the house, and 
after an affectionate kiss John said: 

“Well, darling, your ‘prescience’ was, as usual, better than my 
blundering reasoning. The Church authorities refuse to try the 
standing of ministers by the Bible standard, and say that as Metho¬ 
dists all things must be measured by Methodist standards. So you 
know the result.” 

“Yes,” replied the wife, “I knew some time ago what the result 
would be. I suppose you found that they ‘shortened’ the way if not 
the day of your ‘going out,’ or did they ‘cast’ you out ?” 

“Well,” replied John, “just at present, not exactly either. I 
may say that they did not cast me out, neither have I exactly ‘gone 
out;’ but I consider that I am ‘going out’ pretty fast as well as pretty 
smoothly, especially for one whose going out is in the ‘winter time.’ 
There is such a difference between your ‘going out’ and mine. In 
fact, I believe that you never had any ‘going out’ accompanied by 
earthquakes, and famines, and wars, and the failing and falling of 
sun, moon, and stars, like those which accompany my ‘going out.’ 


John's last conference and what took place. 


335 


Surely you must be one of the class of whom it is written in the 
eighty-seventh Psalm, ‘The Lord shall count when He writeth up 
the people, that this and that man was born there.’ ” 

This, probably, was the fact. So John told his wife all that 
took place, and how he had held the matter of “going out” or being 
“cast out” perhaps in abeyance for the time being. 

The wife now opened the old marked Bible, and read the follow¬ 
ing marked passage: “Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen 
your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.” And again she read an¬ 
other marked passage: “And I will bring the blind by a way that 
they know not of; I will lead them in paths that they have not known. 
I will make darkness light before them and crooked ways straight. 
These things will I do unto them and not forsake them.” 

“Yes,” said John, “who would have thought of the way that 
I have been led out of Babylon into at least the borders of the beau¬ 
tiful city of Zion that John saw ‘coming down’ from God out of 
heaven? I never had the least idea of it except as one step led to 
another. And now the matter seems about ended, and ended in a way 
that I could not have made one-half as good had I had the ordering 
of it myself.” 

“Well,” said the wife, “we’ll open and. read a third bit of Scrip¬ 
ture.” And she opened and read: “Nevertheless, I am certainly 
with thee; thou hast holden me by the right hand. Thou shalt guide 
me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory.” 

“Well, darling,” said John, “what more can we ask? While 
some things yet seem dark, we’ll go forward, step by step, with as 
much unfaltering courage as possible.” 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


JOHN’S GOING FORWARD. 


John Reads More and is the More Confirmed—He Sends His Letter 
of “Withdrawal” to the Church Committee—What Action Was Taken 
in Premises He Never Knew—John, Like Moses in Midian, Retires to 
the Wilderness—He Goes to Texas—Life in Texas—No Locks to the 
Doors, and* Hospitality and Neighborly Kindness Universal—John Goes 
to Herding Lambs in Scholastic Pastures—His “Winter School” a Suc¬ 
cess. 


In accordance with his agreement with the church committee, 
John settled down to a more serious consideration than ever of the 
matters of difference between himself and the church standards. 
He bought a great many new books, treating especially on the sub¬ 
jects in dispute, such as the “Apocalypse Revealed” and the “Apo¬ 
calypse Explained” by Swedenborg, all of Horace Bushnell’s works, 
and “Noble’s Appeal to All Christ’s Ministers.” By the last more 
especially, he was not only more confirmed in his views, but he saw 
more clearly than ever that “all old things” were passing away, and 
that, under the word of Him that sits upon an everlasting throne, it 
is true when He solemnly proclaims, “Behold, I make all things new.” 

So in a few months he wrote to the church committee that with 
a sad heart, yet with a clear and conscientious mind, he would be 
compelled to offer his final withdrawal from any organic connec¬ 
tion with the Methodist Episcopal Church South. As to what dis¬ 
position the committee or the conference ever made of this proposed 
“withdrawal,” John was not at that time informed; nor does he 
know to-day what action, if any, ever was taken; on it. At least he 
never heard that he was pilloried either in person or in effigy. It is 
very probable that many members of the conference, in fact about all 
that knew John personally, were about as sad at his going out from 
them as he was himself. It is no small thing to give up and for¬ 
sake, even ecclesiastically, fathers and mothers and brothers and sis¬ 
ters for even the kingdom of heaven’s sake; or, in this case, “for 
Christ’s sake”—for it was practically his faith in Christ that caused 
John’to forsake Methodism. 





John's going forward. 


337 


Within a few months John went to St. Louis and united with 
a Christian congregation whose creed substantially was one word, 
‘‘Love,”—love to the Lord and to the neighbor, as enjoined in the 
tenth chapter of Luke, where it is expressly declared,* Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.” 
Of which commandments the Lord Jesus Christ said, “This do, and 
thou shalt live,” and that “On these two commandments hang all the 
law and the prophets.” And of which the apostles preached that 
“love is the fulfilling of the law.” 

As a matter of course, these disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ 
had some definite ideas about the entire Scriptures that differentiated 
them from the so-called “orthodox” ecclesiasticism about as much 
as a new, healthy thing differs from an old diseased one. It is true 
that these quiet people “were not striving, nor crying, neither caus¬ 
ing their voice to be heard in the streets,” yet in the wilderness of 
the mind were lifting up Him who, being lifted up, shall draw all 
men unto Him as a center of power and of all salvation and of all 
life even stronger than the mysterious but all forceful power of grav¬ 
ity, which draws all things to the center of creation. So John united 
with these people, and by them was licensed to go forth and preach 
the real Gospel of God to all who are ahungered for the bread, or 
athirst for the living waters of life. 

His wife, who was always better than John, did not join this 
church, always contending that, as a member of the body of universal 
humanity, one could love more people as brethren and sisters than 
could possibly be done as a member of any one particular sect of 
the body of universal humanity. 

John now began to experience what any man must and will ex¬ 
perience who goes out of some old Egypt seeking some new Canaan, 
—who goes out of some country of Haran into a land where he is 
compelled to speak of his wife as his sister. Yes, John began to 
experience a good deal of the wilderness side of things. For to have 
one’s field grubbed and cleared of the old tanglewood necessarily 
leaves a somewhat wilderness of waste before the fruit trees can be 
planted and cultivated to the point of bearing. There is a big stretch 
between the “evening and morning” of all first days of all states of 
life, and the “evening and the morning” of the seventh day thereof. 

So John, like Jacob serving seven years for Rachel the younger, 
got Leah the older, and then served seven years more in order to 
get Rachel, because he ill-advisedlv sought the younger first. Like 
12 


338 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

Moses when he had slain the Egyptian in smiting the Hebrew, John 
herded sheep with the daughters of Reuel in the wilderness of Mid- 
ian, and stood up and helped these daughters water their flock, and 
protected them from the onslaughts of the priests of Midian. 

Yea, John, like the One in whose steps he was endeavoring to 
follow, for forty days and forty nights was among all kinds of wild 
beasts in the wilderness. Yet, like Abraham and Jacob and Moses 
and the Lord of Abraham, more was always gained than that which 
was given up, and John steadily journeyed from the country of “old” 
things to the city of all things “new,”—of which journeying we shall 
relate a few steps and note a few mile-post marks erected on the way. 

As usual and inevitable in a wilderness journey, the traveler often 
doubled on his track. All do this except those who, like John’s good 
wife, have the perception of the wayfarer, which is a divine gift 
mostly bestowed upon women, like the gift of instinct in a horse that 
enables the patient animal to find his way even out of a wilderness 
without studying geography. But John had no such gifted estate 
as that of the wayfarer who, though unlearned, “errs not” in the 
highway of this or that holiness. John often found himself back in 
the place from which he started. In 1870 he found himself back 
in the old Border Ruffian county over on the Missouri River. His 
mother was gone. So ^/as his father. So was the church in which 
he *had virtually been born and nurtured. An earthquake could 
not have caused a more complete case of disappearance. The old 
earth had passed away from under his feet, and the new one was 
as yet somewhat in a state of fluidity. He went to herding sheep 
in this Midian. He taught in the public schools until the sum¬ 
mer of 1873. I n 1873 his father-in-law, like the father-in-law of 
Moses, became somewhat concerned about his “eating bread,” and 
gave him a gift, or rather, at John’s request, gave to John’s wife, who 
was the same as himself, a gift of a large body of land in the wilder¬ 
ness of far-away Texas. To this wilderness John and his wife and 
his children, Horace, Allie, Emma, and one other son, Bingham, trav¬ 
eled, like Abraham, by land. They left the Missouri River on the 
evening of August 10, 1873, and arrived at their landed estate in a 
west Texas county on the evening of September 10, 1873. All of 
which, seemingly, was a kind of “evening” business. 

For a while John combined the occupations of both Moses and 
Jacob, herding sheep and cattle, teaching school and ranching,—alt 
of which had the cast, if not the cold steel itself, of the wilderness 
look as well as the wilderness reality of things. Once in a way at a 


John’s going forward. 


339 


full of moon the Comanche brave would raid the country in quest 
of horses, and, like Sherman going through Georgia, was not par¬ 
ticularly averse to shooting and scalping whatever came in his way. 
On dark and drizzly nights the lonely wolf howled his lonesome howl 
as he prowled along the hills in quest, like all the world, of what 
Texans call his “grub-steak.” And the cow-boys would occasionally 
“shoot up the town.” 

But with all of this everybody seemed friendly, and could not 
do too much for you. Men would move their families out of one 
room of their spacious two-room houses, to give a stranger shelter 
until he could build, or buy, or rent, or get sufficiently acclimated to 
‘ bunk on the ground out-doors.” One of the best of neighbors, 
Tom Wood, thus gave up one room of his two-room house to John 
without rent. With a seemingly wasteful prodigality of time, men 
would leave their work and their homes and travel for days around 
the country with strangers who were prospecting for homes, and 
often would furnish food and horses and wagons free of charge for 
these prospecting tours. They seemed to be a kind of children of 
heaven who were altogether “blessed in deeds,” and not for them. 

As to preachers, principally of the “local” variety, there were 
more preachers to the square mile, considering population, than per¬ 
haps, in any country out of heaven,—where “all are ministers.” 

One out of Texas has no more idea of the many traits of good¬ 
ness of Texas frontier people than a Massachusetts Puritan had of 
any goodness being among the Border Ruffians during the days be¬ 
tween 1854 and i860. 

So thoroughly honest are these Texas people, that a gentleman 
from one of the northern cities, on visiting Texas, was utterly sur¬ 
prised at finding that the people not only had no locks on their doors, 
but would leave these unlocked houses for weeks at a time, and on 
1 eturning find everything in the house that they left there. Of tlfts 
he wrote an account to a Cincinnati daily. After a residence of some 
twenty-eight years in Texas, John has never had all«the doors of his 
house locked, and frequently all were wide open night and day, and 
he has never had as much as a pin taken from it. 

The truth is that there was for many years after John's coming 
to Texas such an idyllic, easy, slip-shod sort of life that there was 
great danger, arising from so much hospitality and visiting around, 
of the whole of society being merged into an ideal state of vaga¬ 
bondism,—a good deal like many suppose heaven to be,—a kind of 
easy-going country where people sing songs and attend protracted 


340 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


meetings with everlasting “basket dinner on the ground.’ Yet this 
writer can affirm that such was for many years, and is yet, to some 
extent, the general status of social life in such counties as Eratli. 
There is nothing that more strikingly exemplifies the buoyancy of 
spirit and childlike nature of these sons of the South than is to be 
found in any little indication of good. For instance, the drought has 
been excessive, the ground hardens and crops languish, and the cattle 
wander about and “low” for water that conies not for the “lowing.” 
The spirits of the farmer, as mortgager, along with the spirits of 
the merchant as mortgagee, both sink below zero. But lo, a 
slight rain comes. All become hopeful and begin to work and whistle, 
and to whistle and work to an extent that is really pathetic to those 
who appreciate the buoyancy of the real childlike spirit. It was this 
spirit—this carrying of the “dews of youth” into the fields of war— 
that made the Southern legions practically invincible on the battle¬ 
field. 

After the life which John Counsellor and his wife had been 
born in and brought up to, this was no doubt the best medicine, or 
tonic, or baptism of nature itself, that the Divine Providence could 
administer. Especially so for John. For years, with spiritual earth¬ 
quakes under his feet, and with spiritual wars and rumors of wars 
beating their alarm drums and blowing their bugles in his ears, 
coupled with a minglement of sun and moon failing in their light and 
stars falling to the ground, and with all these things so many false 
prophets pointing out heaven and the way to it—some saying, “Lo, 
here,” and some, “Lo, there,”—and so many patrician-featured 
friends who were commiserating him, and especially commiserating 
his wife, as being “stricken of God” and “numbered with sinners” 
for transgressions of the law of common sense in trying to solve 
the problem of the coming of the kingdom of the new heaven and the 
new earth that- were to be ushered in at the second coming of the 
Son of Man,—this wilderness was to John as Midian was to Moses, 
as the sheep fold was to David, as perhaps the whole wilderness was 
to Him of whom John was essaying to be a “follower.” 

And John was not idle in this wilderness. Like Moses and 
Jacob and David, he went to herding—herding human lambs in scho¬ 
lastic pastures. To illustrate his mode of herding human lambs, 
or children, we will give a short account of a winter school that he 
taught at the public school-house near his ranch. We will preface 
this by stating that the people generally were all new settlers and 
poor. Schoolbooks were costly. Every teacher required the chil- 


John's going forward. 


341 


dreri to get new books such as he had taught. There was very right • 
fully great complaint about this having to get new books every 
session. 

On the opening day of school John, among other classes, organ¬ 
ized a “Grammar Class” by saying: 

“All who have ever studied English Grammar, and those who 
desire^to study it, will come forward.” 

Whereupon four girls and two boys responded. 

“Let me see your books,” said John. 

On inspection, he found the six grammars consisted of two by 
one author and the other four by four different authors respectively. 
He accordingly remarked: 

“I am disappointed that each one of you has not a different book 
on grammar; because during the session we should like to learn what 
all the grammar writers say about the same thing.” 

“Law,” ejaculated a good-sized Texas lassie. “Why, you don’t 
expect to have six grammar classes, do you ?” 

“Oh, no,” said John, “only one class.” 

He then said to them : 

“Go to your seats and read everything in your book that is said 
about the noun.” 

“Good gracious,” said another girl, “that’s too long a lesson. 
There are a dozen pages in my book about that ar ‘Noun.’ ” 

“All right,” said John, “then we shall know more about it than 
if there was only one page.” 

“Did you say ‘read over’ or study ?” inquired one of the two boys. 

“Well,” said the teacher, “a little mixture of both. When you 
read a newspaper you don’t study it particularly, but you can tell 
your mother pretty much everything that’you read, can’t you?” 

“Certainly,” said one of the girls, “but readin’ er paper and 
studvin’ this er grammar are a different thing.” 

“What difference?” asked John. 

“Why, readin’ ain’t studyin’, is it?” 

“Certainly it is,” said John, “unless you read as a parrot talks, 
without knowing what you are reading about.” 

During the afternoon John called: 

“Granrmar'class will come for recitation.” 

“Which grammar class?” asked one of the girls. 

“Why, the English grammar class,” said John. “I don’t under¬ 
stand that we have any Greek or Hebrew or Dutch grammar classes.” 

“But which book?” asked a pupil. 


342 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


. “I didn’t call for any book,” said John, “but for all who are 
studying grammar to come to the recitation bench.” 

Having finally herded the class together on the recitation bench, 
John said: 

“Each one of you close up your book, and all go to the black¬ 
board.” 

He had already at his own expense prepared sufficient, black¬ 
board to accommodate any ordinary number. All being in place 
at the board, he said: 

“Each one of you write on the board your idea of what a noun 

is.” 

“What our idea about er noun is, or what is in the book about 
it?” asked one of the girls. 

“Well,” said John, “either one; “but I really would prefer that 
you write your own idea about it.” 

Every one of the class had been guilty of the old grievous error 
of trying to “memorize” the whole dozen pages, and not one was 
able to “recollect” so that he could write down what “the book said.” 

Whereupon John said: 

“Well, children, we have learned one of the best lessons to-day 
that you could learn just at this time.” 

“We ain’t learned nothin’,” said one of the boys, gruffly. 

“Oh, yes, you have,” said John. “You’ve learned not to try 
merely to memorize things, which opens the way for something much 
better, that is, that you ‘understand’ things. You must clear up the 
ground before you can raise a good crop.” 

John then went to the black-board, and by this and by that he 
managed to write down in separate examples the idea of each one 
of the authors as to the definition of a noun, as well as his own idea. 
For this he was not indebted to his University diploma of A. M., 
but to the new earth and the new heaven that had to some extent 
taken the places of the old earth and the old heaven in his mind, be¬ 
cause, in the “push” that new things give old ones, all old things 
pass away. Sufficient to say, and truthfully say, that John’s gram¬ 
mar class, each and all, during the four months’ winter school in a 
rough public post-oak school-house in far-away regions of Texas, 
learned more about grammar than John himself had ever learned 
about it in several years at the State University from which he had 
graduated. All other classes also took up all other subjects of study 
topically, and not one single new book was required of any pupil 
on the ground that “we ain’t studyin’ that ar book.” 


John's going forward. 


343 


John’s only trouble during the whole session was to restrain 
the younger children in their impatience to know “when’s our time 
to go to the black-board?” 

As we are on the school question, it might be profitable to note 
some of John's ideas about teachers, as he expressed them to teachers 
during the four years in which as county judge, he was ex officio 
superintendent of the public schools of his county. 

One day, as he w^s issuing a teacher’s certificate to a sprightly 
looking young man, he said: 

“Professor, have you as yet contracted for a school?” 

“No,” replied the young teacher. 

“Now,” said John, “as this is your first certificate, as a matter 
of course you have never taught school. So how do you propose 
to make your first campaign in securing a school to teach ?” 

“Why,” said the professor, “I have some fine recommendations 
to show to the trustees.” 

“Recommendations for what?’ asked John. “As you have never 
taught school, as a matter of course no one can give you any recom¬ 
mendation as a teacher ” and that is what is wanted. That is a 
kingdom of heaven to which everything else is a mere addition. 
No doubt that you can get a recommendation as being a gentleman, 
and perhaps as being a graduate of some Brush College that issues 
-diplomas. But it is not every gentleman, even though a graduate, 
that can teach school.” 

“Well, what shall I do ?” inquired the puzzled young professor. 

“Why, do as I did,” said John. “The first school I ever taught I 
said to the trustees : ‘Gentlemen, you are in an office of trust. You 
ought not to fool away trust money, or even take chances of fooling 
it away on teachers that you know nothing about as teachers. Now, 
I propose that for the first month you fix no salary. In that time 
I can show you my faith by my works. You can judge what kind 
of a tree I am by fruits. If you find out that I am worth nothing, 
then pay me nothing, and call on me for any and all damages in 
the premises. If, however, you see that I am worth a little bit then 
pay me a ‘little bit.’ If you see I am worth a good deal, then pay 
me a ‘good deal.’ In fact, pay me according to what I am worth, 
so that you do not pay more than the finances of your school will 
allow.” 

“If I do this,” said the young professor, “I’ll not get anything, 
perhaps.” 


344 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Why,” said the judge, “did you ever take God at His word, of 
doing right and realizing always that ‘verily thou shalt be fed?' 
Try it, and on my word in the long run you’ll get better pay than if 
you tried by some Shylock contract to pull money out of the public 
school funds. So will the patrons and the pupils of the school be 
better paid.” 

But John succeeded in getting only one teacher to follow his 
advice during all the years of his superintendency, and that was one 
of his own children, who realized by this means more than she ex¬ 
pected. Verily, verily, “many are called, but few chosen” to travel 
the highest and straightest roads of business as well as of heaven.” 

Even in the matter of teaching, it appears that a good deal, if 
not all, had passed away out of John’s life and a somewhat new 
earth and heaven taken their place. Most certainly the Texas earth 
with its surroundings in 1873 was somewhat different from the sur¬ 
roundings in which John and his wife had been born and bred. So, 
in one sense, this was a “new earth” to them,—an earth in its cha¬ 
otic condition of “the evening” of the first day of a new creation, 
where old things had to pass away that new ones might coxne in. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 


•EVOLUTION FROM ATTORNEY-AT-LAW TO COUNSELOR-IN¬ 
LAW. FORCED OUT OF EVEN THE COUNSELING 
PLANE OF LIFE. 


Evolution Backward from Cotton Field to Law Office—From “At¬ 
torney” to “Counselor”—A Court Proceeding Conducted by “Able” 
Counsel—The Results of Such Suit—Cash and Brilliant Reputation for 
Attorneys—But the Loss of Faith by All Honest Citizens. 


To endeavor to give any detailed account of John’s life in Texas 
would be to prolong the story into several volumes. Therefore we 
will give account of only some few notable occurrences of his Texas 
life. One of these will be his seeming “doubling on his tracks” by 
his return to the practice of law, which, however, only illustrates that 
the double back tracking of the Israelites in the wilderness is but 
the experience of about all people, except such as the “few” of the 
both “called and chosen” who, like John’s mother and his wife, went 
mto the straight way. 

Most people whose frames are but of dust and ashes, will 
“wobble on the spindle” of their frail axles. Were this not so, it 
would not have been written that “in His love and in His pitv He re¬ 
deemed them;” because “pity” is only predicable of weaklings who 
cannot walk without staggering. 

John’s experience in actual life would have knocked all the 
Pharisee out of him if he ever had any. A favorite proverb was, 
“All men are made of the same mud.” 

One beautiful day in October, about the year 1878, John took 
the children with him to “pick cotton” in a field where there was a 
fine yield of that fleecy staple. There were some dozen or more 
pickers in the field,—mostly children ranging in age from five years 
old and up. John thought he would make a “trial trip” of picking 
that day, and so, like the old Missouri steamboat men on trial trips, 
crowded bacon and all fast steam producing things into the furnace. 

( 345 ) 





346 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Everybody, from the babies to the gray-haired men and women, 
was “on a race," not so much for “glory,” but because they were paid 
by the pound. At the close of the day the “weighing up" took place. 
Every little lad and lass in the field was ahead of John. The idea 
that a six-year-old Texas boy should distance one who, in a four 
years' stretch of track at a great State University, had thrown the 
dust back in the face of all competitors, while it did not make John 
feel “cheap," yet made him feel that he was a fool, as every prodigal 
has to feel when traveling away from home. 

That night John said to his wife: 

“I am going to move to town and go into some business that 
will enable me to get our children out of the cotton patch and give 
them an education." 

To this the wife somewhat laughingly replied: 

“If their education don’t amount to more than your University 
course did, why, it won’t amount to much." 

“Well," said John, “don’t you think that an education amounts 
to something when it enables one to know the exact point at which 
he is a fool?" 

“Why, papa," said the good wife, “I was only joking. I think 
really that you have made a better use of your education than any 
student I know who has ever graduated at your University." 

“Why, darling," said John, “do vou mean what you sav fof 
‘taffy?”’ 

“No, indeed," said the good wife. “What single graduate of 
this University has ever used his education to ‘hear and understand^ 
the high-school truths of real life that are taught in the colleges 
where Moses and David and Isaiah and John and Peter and Paul are 
the professors, and Jesus Christ Himself is the President? While 
your school-mates, Bodine, Catron, Smith, Rothwell, Hyde, Price, 
Chappell, E. L. King, and many others, have used their education 
to get for themselves places of judges, congressmen, and other high 
seats in the civil temples, you have not used yours for selfish pur¬ 
poses ; but in the use you have put it to you have been made not 
only a free man from that ecclesiastical bigotry that has ruined and 
will continue to ruin every person and country that remains in its 
bonds of iniquity and gall of bitterness,—not only have you used it 
for entering the blessing of freedom, but you have used it to enter 
into planes of spiritual light, power, and life which even the great 
bishops and popes of the fallen churches have not even a greater 
glimpse of than did the scribes and great men of the Sanhedrim 
have of Him whom they despised, rejected, condemned, and cruci- 


AS LAW COUNSELOR. 


347 


fied. And you know, papa, that we have said a thousand times that 
we would not give up what we have learned of God and of our re¬ 
lations to Him for all the world beside.” 

“Yes,” said John, kissing his good wife, “I do not regret the 
past. It is all right. If I could change anything whatever by the 
mere turn of my finger, 1 would not do so. All things work to¬ 
gether for our good. We know who the good Heavenly Father is, 
and we love Him. We must also obey Him, and I think just now 
He would say, ‘Quit the cotton patch and come up higher.’ It may 
be that I can return to my old chosen line of business,—the one for 
which I was educated, and at least be able to educate our children.” 

“Well, I am perfectly satisfied,” said the wife, “that in one event 
you would make as great success at the law as you did the first year 
you practiced it, and as great success as you did at the University in 
distancing all competitors,—and that event cannot happen.” 

“What is that?” asked John. 

“Why, that you enter the practice of law and carry into it all 
of your mind and soul and strength. But you can’t do this. You 
know that the law, like the old fallen church, is sunk into the utmost 
depths of pollution and degradation. Didn’t I hear you say yourself 
that you honestly believed that at least nine lawyers out of ten 
would accept a fee on any side of any question that a fee was first 
offered ? That many of them, and especially those of big reputations 
for clearing criminals, would not only accept a fee from any Cain 
whose dirk was reeking with the blood of any Abel—would not only 
accept a fee from arty Judas Iscariot whose'hands were full of the 
blood money of a Christ,—yes, not only accept a fee to advocate the 
cause of and clear Cain and Judas; but that, having cleared them, 
they would boast of their great success and their ability to clear Ju¬ 
dases and Cains?” 

John could not deny that he believed what-his wife had said, 
whether he had said it or not. And he knew that about everybody 
else who had been about the courts believed the same thing. So 
he did not essay to deny anything; but said: 

“Well, darling, I think by coupling the land agency business 
w-ith that of law, I will be enabled to take only such cases as I choose, 
and yet make enough to educate our children. I know that, in order 
to have any such thing as brilliant success in the law business as it 
is now practiced, it would be necessary to prostitute every mental 
and moral virtue to conniving at perjury, to keeping witnesses from 
telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 


348 


JOHN COUNSELLOR’S EVOLUTION. 


-—to making black look white, and worse still, to making white look 
black,—yes, to doing things as an officer of the court, to enable criin- 
nals to escape, which, if done out of court, would render me liable 
to indictment and to be sent to the penitentiary for 'aiding and abet¬ 
ting criminals to escape justice.’ ” 

"Yes, 1 think we had better leave the ranch,” said the wife, "be¬ 
cause we certainly can’t educate the children here. And, judging the 
future by the past, I think the Lord will lead us by His counsel. I 
think, papa, that you place a great deal of reliance on the angels. 
Well, I rely a good deal on them myself; but at last all reliance must 
be placed on the ‘Lord,’ and there must be cordial co-operation on our 
part.” 

"Well, yes,” replied John, "the Lord does His work through the 
angels.” 

Now, most women, or rather most wives (because it is not every 
wife who is a real woman in the sense of what a woman should be), 
are not only willing, but prodding their husbands to rush into any 
profession where there is either a good deal of money or "worldly 
honor.” But not so with the wife whose eyes are opened,—yea, 
whose eyes have been "lifted up,” as those of John’s wife had been 
in "hearing and understanding” the Word of God. 

So all was arranged, and John moved with his family to the 
county seat and opened up a "Land and Law Office,” putting the 
iand above the law. In this he succeeded, not only in paying him¬ 
self out of debt and in making a good living, but in his main object 
of educating his children, of whom it may be said truthfully, that 
any of his daughters can at any time be waked up out of sleep and 
demonstrate any problem in arithmetic, algebra, and the higher 
mathematics, and, in fact,, know more in the entire curriculum of 
collegiate studies than John knew when he graduated at the State 
University of Missouri in 1858, at the head of his class. They are 
all laden with medals many and honors more. The boys are all 
settled in business, and have the respect and perfect confidence of 
all who know them. At the age of three days the angels took little 
John Counsellor for an education in heaven, while, on the 8th day of 
August, 1898, three armed ruffians entered the editorial office of 
Austin, who was entirely unarmed, and murdered him in cold blood 
for a newspaper article that he never wrote and knew nothing about. 

The defense of these murderers by four of the so-called "lead¬ 
ing lawyers” at the bar was so -utterly ungodly, so unprofessional, 
and so signal in making void all things of judgment and justice 


AS LAW COUNSELOR. 


349 


itself, and this all for cold cash ,—this prostitution of all that is de¬ 
cent was one of the strong causes of John’s quitting the bar, inasmuch 
as he could not feel right in being brought into professional or per¬ 
sonal contact or association with men so utterly lost to every high 
and holy sentiment that should characterize and control the admin¬ 
istration of justice in its own temples. Their conduct was such that 
John’s wife, the mother whom everybody acclaimed as a perfect 
woman, at the sight of any of these “sheeny brilliant” attorneys, had 
a feeling of shock the same as the presence of a slimy serpent would 
have given her. In fact, the .speeches and conduct of these' miser¬ 
able criminal advocates of crime and of criminals hastened the death 
of a woman approved of God and men. 

However, to tell the truth, there is none who can enter into these 
terrible temptations incident to any fallen state of either a church 
or a profession and not be a “reed shaken of the wind.” 

John was often “shaken” and at times “bent over” from the per¬ 
pendicular of the standards of judgment and justice. But, as he 
told his wife, the best thing that his education ever did for him was 
to enable him to know when he was a fool. So, eventually, John 
found it necessary to quit the mere “attorney-ship” line of business 
and to devote himself maiiily to that of “counselor.” 

To discourage litigation, in the fierce passions of which law¬ 
yers, litigants, and witnesses are swept away as with a Noetic flood. 
John published the following circular: 

TO PATRONS AND THE CONSIDERATE PUBLIC. 

The reason that induces me to offer my services as counselor, instead of 
attorney, is that after some thirty-eight years’ experience, spent partly as an 
attorney, partly as counselor and partly as judge, I can candidly say that nine- 
tenths of matters settled by resorting to law suits could, by resorting to a 
common counselor, be settled, ist, in one-tenth the time; 2d, ten-fold less 
expensively ; 3d, much more in keeping with good conscience and equity, and 
4th, more satisfactorily to all concerned (except the attorneys and bailiffs). 
In support of this statement I submit an actual occurrence which came 
within my own experience, which is only one out of hundreds that 
have so come. Some years ago an old citizen of Erath County died, 
leaving an estate worth some $30,000, consisting of lands, cattle, horses, 
money, etc. He had been married three times, and had three sets of heirs, 
having children by each marriage. The respective heirs heired differently 
and consulted different attorneys as to their legal rights. A triangular law 
suit was brewing, which, had it been resorted to, would scarcely have ended 
for years; and never ended with less expense than some $3000 attorneys’ 


350 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 

fees and costs. Attorneys’ fees are generally ten per cent of the amount 
involved, which would have made $3000, to say nothing of court costs. Some 
of the heirs consulted me. My advice was to settle the matter among them¬ 
selves, as they were all honest, well meaning people, and only desired what was 
right. I proposed that, as common counselor in determining under the law 
their respective rights and drawing up papers, etc., I would settle the 
matter satisfactorily to them all inside of twenty-four hours after I met them 
in mutual consultation; and that I would charge for my service $65, which 
was $5 for each of the thirteen heirs—each heir paying his pro rata—no cure 
no pay. 

This was agreed on. A family dinner at the old homestead was had, at 
which all were present. In less than twenty-four hours all matters were 
adjusted to the satisfaction of all concerned. Perhaps not ten, but twenty 
fold, was saved in attorneys’ fees, costs of court, attending court “from term 
to term,” and bad blood! For all remained friends among themselves 
and friends to myself—a never heard of thing in lawsuits! 

I forbear to mention hundreds of law suits that have occurred here in 
Erath County in which the matter in dispute was a six-bit pig, or $5 colt, 
where costs were multiplied hundreds of dollars, with great loss of time to 
neighbors who were witnesses, and bad blood boiling as in the caldron of the 
witch, with a net asset of tails and horns left for the litigants while somebody 
else “milked” the matter in dispute. 

There is scarcely a citizen who has not had actual knowledge of the 
delays, the costs, the bad feelings, and utter unsatisfactoriness of settling dis¬ 
putes by lawsuits. 

To such an extent have matters gone that notwithstanding lawyers, as 
a general thing, are above the average citizen in intelligence and social 
qualities, yet professionally, as so-called “officers of the court” they are 
forced to practices besmearing and dangerous to society. There are many 
honorable exceptions to this rule. All through the ages lawsuits have been 
regarded as terrible evils. 

Six hundred years before Christ plaintively uttered His “woe unto law¬ 
yers,” a Grecian HCsop allegorized a lawsuit as a proceeding in wnich Sheep 
and Sheep were litigants; the Fox and Eagle were attorneys; the Tiger was 
bailiff, and a Blind-folded Bat was judge. (Because if the judge knows 
anything of himself about the case he is disqualified from sitting on a law¬ 
suit.) The usual verdict pictured was: “That plaintiff Sheep be sheared to 
make a soft den for Attorney Fox, and the Defendant Sheep be killed to 
satisfy the costs of Bailiff Tiger and the other members of the menagerie; 
and what be left of hide, horns, and hoofs to go as damages to fleeced Plain¬ 
tiff Sheep.” 

Verily an ordinary lawsuit is a menagerie in which every wild beast 
known to the human heart is aroused from its secret lair; and every cunning 
bird of prey is called to cock-crowing from every rookery of the human mind; 
and each cruel beast and cunning bird is alert with an animus of “anything 
to win!” 


AS LAW COUNSELOR. 


351 


The litigious “woe” had become so great in the days of Christ that He 
who was altogether given, not to the least exaggeration but to proclaiming 
“the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” solemnly declared: 
“If any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy 
cloak also!” 

In the beginning there were no attorneys or even courts. No attorney, 
no bailiff or judge figured in the first murder case where Cain killed Abel. 
For centuries where men couldn’t see clearly they consulted some mutual 
counselor “whose home was under the palm tree,” instead of hiring attorneys; 
and settled everything by mutual submission to counsel. In those ages men 
only desired to know what was right, and on discovering the right cheerfully 
submitted to it. Why should not this be the case at this day? 

Premises considered, I feel myself fully justified, yea, from my stand¬ 
point of seeing and knowing, I feel constrained to choose the office of coun¬ 
selor, so that I may honestly use what talents I have stored up in thirty-eight 
years of toil as attorney, counselor, and judge. In this capacity I sh&ll, 

1st. Do all things honorable to have all differences settled by amicable 
and mutual consultation and agreement. 

2d. Counsel purchasers as to land titles and all other business engage¬ 
ments so as to prevent disputes, lawsuits, and losses. 

3d. Will give particular attention to probate business such as that of 
executors, administrators, and guardians. 

4th. Will take no cases to be litigated in court except such as the law 
requires to be settled by judicial proceedings, or in extreme cases where 
justice demands the restraint or constraint of those unwilling to submit to 
what is right. 

5th. Will in all cases, so far as in me abideth, hew to the line of “the 
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” let the chips fall where 
they may. John Counsellor, Counselor-in-Law. 

While the “Law Journals/' as organs of the Great-is-our-Legal- 
Diana-Craft, ridiculed this departure from the city of the Legal 
Sodom/yet John received congratulations from far and wide on his 
courage at coming out in favor of a course of conduct in the legal 
profession which is the only one that can be conscientiously pursued 
by any intelligent civilized man, to say nothing of a “pure and un¬ 
defiled” Christian. There is about as much concord between the 
present-day practice of law and the precepts of Jesus as there is be¬ 
tween Mammon and the Messiah. 

When we as a nation are again in the throes of another internal 
war, the fallen priests of the Law and the fallen priests of the Gos¬ 
pel will be more responsible for all of the bloody agony and blasting 
desolation of such war than all other elements of society combined. 
Already the practices of the courts and of the “officers of the 


352 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


court/' that is, attorneys, are making anarchists and mobocrats by 
the wholesale. We will give one instance out of those of daily oc¬ 
currence, where even one of John’s own children was turned from 
all the teachings of his father and mother into an outright mobocrat, 
and when we have given the incident, which is in all things true, 
about ninety-nine men out of every hundred will say that a little dose 
of mob in this case would have done much more good than some seven 
years’ “doses” of law actually accomplished. 

Some years ago, on a large cattle ranch in the Pan-Handle sec¬ 
tion of Texas, a man was murdered in cold blood. For convenience, 
we will call the murdered man Abel Killed, and the murderer Cain 
Killer. The only eye-witness to the murder was Horace Counsellor. 
The circumstances were as follows: 

Mr. Killed was a £ober, hard-working head of a family, while 
Mr. Killer was a drinking gambler, in most part given to broils and 
bulldozing. 

One rainy evening, when nobody was at work, there was a so¬ 
cial game of cards in which the boisterous gambler took umbrage 
at some action of Abel, which, as testified on trial, was this : Cain was 
drinking and Abel had won all of his cash,—some few dollars being 
all. Cain urged Abel to continue the game on a credit basis, which 
Abel very unwillingly did, and having won some fifty dollars off of 
Cain, said to him that it was getting late and he must go to see about 
his family chores. Pie then offered to give Cain back, not only all of 
the money that he had won, but to cancel that which he had won on 
credit, stating that he did not make a living by gambling and was 
only playing for pastime. But Cain refused to quit playing, where¬ 
upon Abel laid the money that he had won on the table, and as he 
was leaving Cain threatened to kill him on sight. 

Early the next morning Abel and Horace Counsellor were out 
on the ranch premises away from any house or person. Cain rode up 
to them on his horse and deliberately got down and deliberately 
shot Abel to death with a Winchester rifle. Horace clinched with 
the desperado, and after a long and at times doubtful physical 
struggle in which Cain was trying to shoot Horace also, and Plorace 
was trying to get the gun and put Cain under arrest, Horace suc¬ 
ceeded in this. 

Horace made Cain get up on his horse, and tied his feet under 
him, intending to go for some one to see after the corpse of his 
murdered friend whose body lay stark and bloody on the wide prairie 
bosom. 


AS LAW COUNSELOR. 


353 


Now, Abel was a universal favorite, and Cain was of universal 
ill-repute with the cow-boys of the great ranch on which, perhaps, 
some hundred were employed. At this juncture some half-dozen 
cow-boys rode up, and seeing and hearing from Horace what had 
been done, they proposed to hang the murderer there and then, and 
proceeded to prepare their lariats to that end,—which hanging, in 
the absence of trees or other gallows, would have been effected by 
four of the cow-boys placing their lariats around the neck of the cul¬ 
prit and then riding swiftly in opposite directions. 

But Horace, having all the respect for law and order and fair 
play which characterized his ancestors on both maternal and paternal 
lines, pulled his gun and swore that he would kill the first man that 
attempted to hurt the prisoner,—that prisoners were sacred from 
violence until duly tried; and, with much persuasion backed by a 
gun, he finally got the boys to agree to carry the prisoner to the 
county-seat, some forty miles distant, and deliver him to the sheriff, 
assuring the boys that there was no doubt that the murderer would be 
hanged, because, said he: 

‘‘I know all of the facts and will testify to them, and hell and 
high-water can’t keep him from being hanged!” 

So the prisoner was delivered to the sheriff. In some few 
months, the first trial, or rather, the first day set for trial, came 
round. Horace and some thirty or forty other cow-boys on the 
part of the State, and some thirty or forty miscellaneous persons on 
part of the defendant, gathered from all over the State by attach¬ 
ment, were ready for testifying at the trial. The defendant had 
a good many rich kinsfolk and friends who employed “able” counsel 
for the defense. Here this “able” counsel got in its first ,work by 
applying for a “change of venue,” with the usual “straw” proof that, 
if the motion was not granted, the court of appeals would reverse 
the case. Hence the local presiding judge was compelled to grant 
the motion, notwithstanding that he knew just as well as he knew 
that he was sitting on the bench that this motion was made “for de¬ 
lay,” during which “delay” witnesses would get scattered, some 
would die, and some be “bought or killed off,” and give the defend¬ 
ant time and chance for manufacturing some defense that might 
at least raise a “reasonable doubt.” 

“Able” counsel pocketed a good deal of cash and chuckled to 
itself while intimating to the boys that “if you ever need help in 
a time of sore need, you’ll know whom to employ.” 


354 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


This farce, so far, had cost the State and county some two thou¬ 
sand dollars, and cost some fifty odd witnesses many days’ loss of 
time, and some of them great loss of money. 

After six months the first trial came off. After the usual load¬ 
ing of the record by “able” counsel with motions for continuance, or 
postponement, or to quash the indictment, etc., hoping somewhere in 
this medley of motions to get in a seed that would justify the court 
of appeals to quibble about and reverse the verdict in case of convic¬ 
tion. The result of the trial was a verdict for “hanging the defend¬ 
ant.” An appeal was taken to the “court above.” After a year or 
more of holding up in court, a quibbling “opinion” of the couit 
reversed the case, and sent it back for a new trial. Again, after 
nearly two years, the day of the second trial came round. Over one 
hundred witnesses were on hand. More motions, more quibbling, 
and more of this and that multiplied interminably with the hope of 
delay or a straw upon which to rest a “reversal” of the case in the 
higher court. (Many good people are beginning to think that the 
highness of this “Court of Obstruction” should materialize in the 
form of dignity that characterized Haman’s elevation.) 

Result of the day—another change of venue, with another six 
months’ delay and another several thousand dollars’ charge to State 
mid county, and another going back and another coming back of some 
one hundred witnesses, losing time and, worse than losing time, fast 
losing faith in courts and in government itself. These open-bosomed 
boys of the open prairie began to think that five minutes’ work with 
their old familiar lariats would have saved all of this two years’ 
legal foolery and judicial blasphemy. 

At the end of some four years from the date of the murder, the 
third trial day was set. More witnesses swore to prove that some 
other witnesses swore to lies, some to prove the judge was biased, 
some to prove that defendant was some years ago crazy, and some 
that he was born crazy, and some to prove this and that thing that 
had been lugged into the case purposely to confuse it and delay it. 
And lo and behold, a “continuance” by motion of defendant. 

Another year and another coming of witnesses. Another in¬ 
creased bill of costs against the county and the State, which now ag¬ 
gregated over ten thousand dollars. 

Another six months, another trial with a hung jury. Perhaps 
one or two men “hanging it.” Thus the jury gets hung instead 
of the defendant. 


AS LAW COUNSELOR. 


355 


After several more changes of venue and continuances, the end 
of the seventh year comes, and with it comes, 

‘‘We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty.’' 

This is about the only kind of verdict that that celebrated court 
of obstruction and delay never reverses. Net result of trial: The 
State and county pay some $25,000 costs, witnesses combined lose 
thousands of days and hundreds of dollars, and lose all the faith 
they ever had in courts, and a man who killed a companion on the 
open prairie in broad daylight goes free, and the “able” counsel 
pocket the cash and brag of their “glorious triumph” in clearing a 
very bad case. Alas, very many of the “able” counsel are leading 
members in leading churches! 

In speaking of the grievous misdoings and results of this case, 
the Cow-boy Horace said: 

“H— 11 ! Don’t you know I ought to have let the boys hang the 
d—n scoundrel the morning that he killed poor Abel, who was one 
of the best men I ever knew, while Cain was one of the worst ?” 

I suspect that nine men out of every ten, even though nomi¬ 
nally Christians, would concur in the sentiment uttered by the cow¬ 
boy, with “H— 11 ” and “D—-n” thrown in. 

Now it was the daily occurrence of such transactions as the above 
in the courts, coupled with the conduct of “able” counsel in frustrat¬ 
ing justice in the case of the murderers of his own son, Austin, that 
caused John to quit the attorney business, and finally, so as to have 
nothing to do at all with courts as now run, to quit everything that 
would bring him in contact with law-books that are now in some one- 
hundredth edition of such traditions as those to be found in the 
Talmud. 

Many are driven by the abuses and quibblings of the courts, and 
by the unutterable prostitution of its practicing priests, to advocate 
mob law, even to the extent of hanging, not only criminals out of the 
court, but such ones who, as officers of the court, sell their services for 
hire to clear criminals inside of the court. In fact it has gone so 
far that one of the best citizens in Texas told John that he was sit¬ 
ting in the court of appeals one day when they reversed a criminal 
case in which he himself knew the ’facts; and so outraged at this re¬ 
versal was this good citizen that he said: 

“If I had had a shot-gun, I could hardly have restrained my¬ 
self from shooting the judge who, with great gusto, rendered the 
decision.” 


356 


JOHN COUNSELLORS EVOLUTION. 


The last case in which John ever appeared in court conclusively 
convinced him of some serious things. It was a United States Court 
that operated in a West Texas district. The judge was a “carpet¬ 
bagger,” or at least was neither in birth, nor in gentlemanly manners, 
nor in spirit kindred with the people over whose life, liberty, and 
property he had been foisted as a judge. By “foisted” is meant 
that he was not the choice of the people over whom he essayed to rule, 
—yes, “rule,” like an old-time negro overseer was wont to “boss” 
over a slave gang in the cotton-fields of the South. This “federal 
judge” had been a shystering corporation attorney, and though at 
first rejected by the United States Senate, yet, through some private 
“pull” with the Capitolian Caesar, this coarse, self-pushing, boorish 
personage had succeeded in having himself “foisted’ into judicial 
place of power,—power at least to exercise his low-bred instinct of 
insulting and bulldozing those temporarily in his clutches. 

John and all of his people had been born and nurtured in the 
schools of law and order. With him reverence for established con¬ 
stitutional authority amounted to about the same as religion itself. 
But to the point, 

v John’s last experience with the last case in the federal court 
presided over by this offensive imitator, if not literal blood descend¬ 
ant, of Jeffreys, convinced him of several serious things. 

First. There must be something radically wrong in a judicial 
system under which such coarse bulldozers can be foisted into and 
kept in public place. 

Second, that unless the better and peace-loving class of citizens 
take some peaceably legal or constitutional means to remedy these 
court evils, they will soon, like seed producing after its kind, produce 
worse evils, and all like abuses which preceded the French Revolu¬ 
tion will end in a bottomless pit of anarchy and mobocracy. 

All historians teach that the ignorance and insolence and inop¬ 
portuneness of the “men in power” caused the French Revolution. 
And all that is in the human heart that partakes of the nature of the 
“wrath of the Lamb” is instinct with the feeling that “disloyalty to 
tyrants is loyalty to God,” and that even “those in authority” (espe¬ 
cially by means so purely undemocratic as those by which federal 
judges get power) may be, by even very good people, looked upon 
and denounced as “whited sepulchers filled with dead men’s bones.” 

The great fear is that in the present infirm states of the hearts 
of men this “wrath of the Lamb” may take vengeance into its 
own hands and endeavor to overcome evil with evil, to overcome out¬ 
rage with outrage, may invoke the wind that of itself produces the 


AS LAW COUNSELOR. 


357 


whirlwind, may appeal to militarism, which inevitably in the end 
produces the anarchist with his stiletto, and at present spawns on the 
public just such miserable and offensive rulers as are now pervert¬ 
ing the public service. 

Though John had in him the cavalier blood of all the Seviers, 
and felt insult more keenly than perhaps one in a thousand does, 
and when he felt himself in the right was absolutely void of per¬ 
sonal fear, yet so well did he know that like produces like, that evil 
cannot be overcome with evil, that the sword of the militarist pro¬ 
duces the dagger of the anarchist, that he always opposed anything 
like the Virginia sentiment of “Sic semper tyrannis” opposed all 
“higher law” such as is administered by provost marshals and mobs; 
but in private talk, in public speech, and through the public press ad¬ 
vocated such judicial reforms as the following: 

First, to make all judges, State and Federal, subject to elec¬ 
tion and removal by direct vote of the people whom they were to 
serve,—not to rule. 

Second, let a majority of the jury decide all cases, as even a 
presidential election is decided by a majority. 

Third, when there is an unanimous verdict by a jury, let there 
be no appeal except to the trial judge, not to a set of old “musties” 
away off at the State capital who never hear half of the evidence, 
never see the demeanor of witnesses, and who are so hobbled and 
headed off from common sense by their own traditions that, like the 
Jews, they render the statutes and commandments of judgment and 
justice absolutely void. 

Fourth, make it a felony punishable by disbarment and impris¬ 
onment in penitentiary for any officer of court (attorneys are under 
the law “officers” of the court) who for hire or fee endeavors to aid 
or abet in or out of court any criminal to escape justice,—making the 
penalty double when the aiding or abetting is done inside the court. 

Fifth, change the circuit or district system of courts so that there 
will be in every county a local court whose gates, like those of Gos¬ 
pel grace, should stand open night and day. So that an offender 
committing an offense in the morning should be placed on trial in the 
evening. Then witnesses would not have to be brought from all 
over the State, then witnesses would not be killed out of the way, 
then “straw” witnesses could not be manufactured, then millions of 
dollars would be saved the people, then the occupation of attorneys 
whose chief talent lies in “applications for continuances” would be 
gone, then and then only “speedy and fair trial” guaranteed by the 
constitution would be insured. 


358 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Sixth, let honest men who know all about the case from personal 
knowledge sit as jurors in preference to men who know nothing 
about it, and never learn anything about it if “able” counsel can keep 
them ignorant of vital facts, and even what they do learn is from wit¬ 
nesses who are either so embarrassed by the bulldozing of “able” 
counsel that they cannot recollect one-half they know, or who are 
in many cases perjured. The more an honest man knows about a 
case the better qualified he is for a juror. Yet the scribes and elders 
of the law have reversed this commandment of common sense by 
letting only such men as are blanks sit as jurors. This perhaps 
might do, were it not that these “blanks” are often filled out in 
the handwriting of “able” counsel, “able” to make black look white 
and white look black, “able” to boast of deeds done by them as 
“officers of the court,” which if done outside would send them to the 
penitentiary for aiding and abetting the bloodiest of criminals to 
escape. 

With such things as these going on right at the head fountains 
of justice, is there any wonder at there being such convulsions of 
mobs everywhere, yea, and of a final French Revolution itself, when 
the wrath of all these wrongs shall gather together their combined 
strength in some civil cyclone? 

So we see the causes that led, yea, forced, John out of a profes¬ 
sion that, if not “fallen, fallen, fallen,” would be like a Church of 
God that is not “fallen, fallen, fallen” should be, the crown of all pro¬ 
fessions. But as fallen it has become, like a fallemchurch the “hab¬ 
itation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of 
every unclean and hateful bird.” 

What will an honest man lose in an evolution out of such a hor¬ 
rible and miry pit? Whatever might be lost or gained, John came 
out of the legal city of all his forefathers and brothers. This ends 
his “Evolution” on one plane of life. Thus an “old earth” passed 
from under his feet in an earthquake. Thus an “old heaven” rolled 
up as a scroll and shriveled and passed away from his vision,—yea, 
from all of his life. 

The “new earth” and the “new heaven” are in process of go¬ 
ing from the “evening and morning” of their first day on toward the 
formation of their seventh. 

And so it will be, and so it must be, with every honest lawyer 
who has the wisdom to discern the fallen condition of the legal Baby¬ 
lon, and strength sufficient to come out of it, even though it be 
in the winter time. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


POLITICS AGAIN. THE KIND THAT JOHN WENT INTO, 
AND WHY? 


A Sample Partisan Speech by an “M. C.”—A Non-Partisan Move of 
the People Captures John—This Move a Mere John Baptist Mission 
“In the Wilderness”—Direct Legislation and Proportional Representa¬ 
tion the Only Way Out of the Political Babylon—The Political Babylon 
a Spawn of the “Spiritual Babylon”—The Cause Must be Removed Be¬ 
fore the Effect Can be Cured. 


At the time of John’s re-entering politics his county and district 
and State were about ten to one Democratic; and it might have been 
supposed that any young man ambitious for place and preferment 
would side with such a majority. But it was not so with John. He 
sought only the truth as the pearl for which he was willing to sell 
all other things—place, power, public pie. He was fast becoming a 
citizen of a new age—of a new earth and a new heaven. Such as he 
cannot enter into partisan politics, unless he be like the dog return¬ 
ing to its vomit and the sow to her wallow. In the language of the 
New Christianity —a paper which he had begun to read regularly— 
he recognized politics “as but a systematized scheme by which the 
thieves strip the public of its raiment and leave it wounded half unto 
death for the priests and Levites to pray over and pass by, while 
the good Samaritan (mostly women) does all he can to help and 
heal the unfortunate.” 

So John re-entered politics as neither a partisan, nor priest, nor 
Levite, but as a Samaritan—as a patriot—recognizing all men as 
neighbors and furnishing a mule to any in need. Perhaps no one 
political Samaritan, according to means and opportunity, did more, 
by means of his money and by public speech and by writings in the 
public press, for the public weal than did John. He often wrote for 
as many as six papers at a time, and contributed often one-fourth of 
his income to campaign purposes. But this was not the case with 
him until, under a mistaken view of the highest duty of citizenship, 

( 359 ) 





360 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


he had been altogether out of politics for nearly twenty years. The 
following circumstance first led him to re-enter the political field. 

Along in the latter part of the seventies he was living on his 
ranch. One “First Monday” he went up to the county seat, and as 
usual there was public speaking by candidates for this and that place 
of power, that they “might save the country,” and, incidentally, get a 
bit of public plunder. 

That day a speech was made by a distinguished Texas member 
of Congress who was a candidate for re-election. The only thing 
John remembers of this speech was that the candidate gave, as one 
of the leading reasons why he should be re-elected, substantially the 
following: 

'‘There is one thing,” said he, “of great importance that I have 
learned a good deal about. In view of the narrow margin of votes 
between die two great political parties that are seeking to control 
the government, the subject of 'contested elections’ cuts a large and 
serious figure. When I first went to Congress 1 was, perhaps, too 
honest, being fresh from the honest masses. When a contested elec¬ 
tion case came up for investigation, the only thing I inquired about 
was, ‘Whom did the people elect ?’ 

“But, to keep up with the boys on the other side, I had to learn 
better ; and if I am returned, I will pledge my fellow countrymen 
that in contested election cases the only thing I will inquire about is, 
‘What is the party politics of the respective contestants?’ 

“And you know the result, for you know that I always vote the 
Democratic ticket without asking other questions than, ‘Is it the 
party ticket ?’ ” 

This was greeted by immense applause, amid which John called 
to mind the “First Monday of Court” speeches back in the days cf 
his life in Border Ruffiandom. He involuntarily thought of his father 
and wished he were here to rebuke this blind leader leading the blind. 
But no echo came back from his father’s old familiar voice, which 
was now still in death. So he got up and left, notwithstanding his 
warm personal friends (afterward Judge) Nugent and Frank, who 
sat at his side, urged him to stay and hear “the great speech through.” 

Nugent afterward changed his views on such rank partisanism, 
and became one of the greatest commoners of the people as against 
partisan politicians. 

This “great speech” that had been cheered with tremendous ap¬ 
plause was about the first that John had heard since his father went 
up against United States Senators Atchison and Green when he was 


IN POLITICS AGAIN. 


361 


standing for law and order in the old Border Ruffian days in Mis¬ 
souri. It may be imagined that this speech aroused John’s indig¬ 
nation. 

He went back to his ranch in the wilderness, and after consul¬ 
tation with his wife, he determined to re-enter politics,—not “party 
politics,” but politics as the science of government, in which every 
citizen is under the highest and holiest obligations to use all of the 
wisdom, prudence, and sagacity in his power, not primarily for his 
own advancement, but for the common welfare. He saw that the 
word politics had been wrested from its primary meaning by the 
party politicians, just as the priests and Levites had wrested the 
original commands of God by their prostituting traditions. No citi¬ 
zen can shirk the duties of citizenship without being a public criminal. 
It is as much the duty of a Christian to enter upon and discharge the 
duties arising from his relation to the entire public, as it is to dis¬ 
charge the duties arising from his relation to his wife and his chil¬ 
dren, or his farm and his shop. Only, the relation to the entire 
public body comprehends as much greater obligations as the entire 
public is greater than any one part of it, such as its homes, its farms, 
its shops. 

A citizen can be a greater criminal in neglecting his duties as a 
citizen than he can in neglecting his duties as a father or hus¬ 
band, or laborer. But none of these duties are in conflict. 
These tithings of mint, anise, and cummin ye ought to do, and 
not leave the weightier matter of the whole public weal or woe 
undone. If you do not this, then thieves will continue to rob, and 
priests and Levites will continue to go by on the other side; and the 
Samaritan, unorganized and on his own mule and with his own 
money, will be the only hope and help of the unfortunate. 

This speech also staggered John a good deal on another more im¬ 
portant point. During all of these years when he was studying the 
nature of God as manifested in Him who was “The Word made 
Flesh,” his mind had gradually been more and more inclined to a 
hopeful belief in the “restitution of all things,” as prophesied in the 
Bible. His mind often dwelt on such things,—that if the all-wise 
God could devise ways to overcome death and the grave and hell, 
He would also overcome sin, which causes death, the grave, and 
hell,—overcome it in all climes. 

But turning away from the Divine side of things, and seeing 
the human side as he saw it at the Texas speech-making, greatly 
staggered his faith in the “restitution” idea of things. To think 


362 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


into what horrible pits the party politicians had led the people! Into 
what fields of carnage, into what seas of blood, into what furnaces 
of fire, into what awful blackness of darkness the party politicians 
had led the people in a great four years of butchering each other 
like beeves! 

In view of such leading, to see them again shouting back “thun¬ 
derous applause” in responsive approbation of such awful anar¬ 
chistic sentiments as those uttered by the Candidate “Bim,” on this 
occasion of John’s first attendance, after some twenty odd years, on 
a public speaking,—a speaking in the supposed interests of public 
weal,—made him a convert, for the time being, not only to the hide¬ 
ous ddctrine of “total depravity” but to the seemingly righteous un¬ 
charitableness which declares: If there isn’t a hell, there ought to be 
one, especially for such party politicians as those who can say in 
public that, as a judicial officer, “in determining who should be seated 
I have ceased to inquire whom the people elected, but now only in¬ 
quire what are the party politics of the respective contestants, and 
vote for my party man.” 

John thought, so far as “politics” is concerned, that any decent 
man’s health would be better out in the ozone of a wilderness life 
than in the putrid atmosphere of a First Monday speaking which was 
intended to “save the country.” Yet he was led back into politics, not, 
however, of a partisan kind; but a kind that he always described as 
being on the civil plane exactly what the campaigning of John the 
Baptist wag on a spiritual plane, and he always contended that the 
campaign upon which he entered must eventually end like that of 
John the Baptist, which seemingly “forlorn hope” campaigning will 
be explained hereafter. 

We will give a very brief account of John’s re-entering politics. 

For several years previous to the Fourth of July, 1888, the 
farmers of Texas had been meeting, with their wives and daughters 
and their neighbors, in neighborhood tlubs, wherever, like the first 
Christian church, two or three could “be gathered together” to con¬ 
sult, in an absolutely non-partisan and neighborly spirit, about the 
betterment of the conditions of themselves and their wives and their 
little ones. 1 

Like all movements that have the good of men, women, and 
children at heart, this movement had felt in its bosom the pulse-beat¬ 
ing of a God who always incarnates Himself in any and all such 
bodies. John had addressed several of these neighborhood farmers’ 
alliances. 


IN POLITICS AGAIN. 


368 


On the Fourth of July, 1888, there was a meeting, in a central 
locality, of representatives of these neighborhood non-partisan alli¬ 
ances in the county where John resided. John, for the first time since 
he helped elect Claib Jackson Governor of Missouri, attended a po¬ 
litical meeting or convention. The object of this convention was to 
select candidates for county offices on a strictly non-partisan basis. 

The county government, like all governments, from county up 
to that of the commonwealth, had got somewhat into the condition of 
the historic Augean stable, where, for a thousand years a thousand 
cows had accumulated a thousand fathoms deep of muck and mire. 

Among other nominations made by this meeting was that of John 
for county judge. Now, notwithstanding that he knew, what act¬ 
ually did take place, that this ticket would be elected by nearly two- 
thirds of the vote of the county, yet so firmly was his mind made up 
never to run for office, that he immediately arose and declined,—and 
suggested m his place a lawyer of whom John said that “he was one 
among the extraordinarily few attorneys who would never accept a 
fee from Cain or from Judas Iscariot.” This lawyer was W. W. 
Moores, who was nominated, and elected with the ticket. Judge 
Moores’ good wife was a second Mrs. Hemphill—Christian-featured, 
yet a Methodist. For while yet a Methodist, her face was of that 
peculiarly pleasing Southern kind that would give the angels but 
little work to mould into that of an angel when she went up among 
them from the earth. 

Four years rolled round. Both by articles in the county papers 
and by public addresses and by contributions of money and labor as 
county chairman of this people’s non-partisan movement, John did all 
he could to help overthrow the party politicians and to build up the 
people. As chairman, he wrote, and got his people to pass in their 
county conventions, the following plank in their platform: 

“Resolved, that the sole object of a public canvass is for the pur¬ 
pose of ascertaining the merits of both measures and men. To this 
end be it understood that every voter should be left in perfect free¬ 
dom, in speech and in action, to ascertain what is best for the com¬ 
mon good of a common country, and, at the election, to vote for 
such candidates as in good conscience and in enlightened judgment 
he may deem to be, first, honest, and second, capable of best fulfill¬ 
ing the duties of the office to be filled.” 

This resolution attracted the attention of the Dallas News, the 
leading daily paper of the entire South, which paper editorially said: 


364 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


The Erath County people are to be congratulated upon their recent adop¬ 
tion of a new and timely declaration of freedom and independence. It is well- 
worth the careful reading and serious attention of every voter who values his 
liberty at the ballot-box. The people are tired of the commands, whips, and 
branding-irons of audacious masters who have not hesitated to claim the earth 
for themselves and their party pets, and who knows that the only means of 
gratifying their greed has been, and is, and ever will be, party slavery. 

Four years had passed. John was in “politics” such as indicated 
above night and day. Against his wishes and against his protesta¬ 
tions, and against his personal interest, the people again nominated 
him for county judge. He could find no excuse to decline, and was 
elected. The first thing that he did was to cut down his own salary. 
Now, in this particular at least, it must be evident to all eyes that he 
was on a “new” political earth and of a “new” political “heaven.” 

He was elected, and re-elected in 1896 by an increased popular 
vote, though nearly all those on his ticket were slaughtered by the 
partisan party ticket. 

The reason of the decline of this non-partisan movement of the 
people was that eventually any non-partisan move will become par¬ 
tisan, when candidates are to be nominated for places of power and 
pelf. Hence the only mission of this people’s move was, like that 
of John the Baptist, to preach repentance as to evil conditions, and to 
point out some coming savior that would deliver from such evil 
conditions, and never to claim that the preachers of repentance or 
the water-baptizing Johns can possibly do the saving. 

John always held that the people, the whole body of the people, 
were the only possible saviors; and that the whole body of the people 
could not be placed in power by electing men to make laws for the 
people; but that this can be done only,—yes, that the people can be 
made sovereign in all departments of government, legislative, judi¬ 
cial, and executive,—only by means of a constitutional system of gov¬ 
ernment known as direct legislation. 

Hence he publicly declared that “all men are made out of the 
same mud,” and that a long lease of power, even in the hands of so- 
called reformers, would result in the office-holders eating bread and 
the people eating stones. 

From the standpoint, not only of universal history, including the 
records of the Bible itself, as well as from his experience among re¬ 
formers in their wild endeavors at electing “good men” to office 
with the hope of ultimating good laws through these “good men,” 
John was so thoroughly convinced that there was no hope whatever 


IN POLITICS AGAIN. 


365 


cf- the people being saved from such political ills and woes as have 
ever overtaken them under governments which are administered by 
“the elect” collar part/politicians; and being so thoroughly convinced 
that if the people would only use in a direct manner the talent of sov¬ 
ereignty which every magnet charta of liberty distinctly avows as be¬ 
ing “inherent in and inalienable from” the great body of the people, 
they could and would save themselves from being distracted and de¬ 
stroyed by miscarriages of government. And seeing in direct legis¬ 
lation for making laws, and in proportional representation as a sys¬ 
tem for selecting public officials to administer laws, such strikingly 
simple ways for the people in the most direct manner possible to ex¬ 
ercise their “all power” in all departments of government, legislative, 
judicial, and executive, John not only made public addresses and 
wrote magazine and newspaper articles innumerable, but he estab¬ 
lished a public journal devoted exclusively to the advocacy of direct 
legislation as the’ simplest way , the speediest way, and the only way 
of effectively exercising their power. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 


THE STEPS THAT LED UP TO THE FINAL ESCHEWING OF 
THE EVIL OF A GOVERNMENT OF, BY, AND FOR 
PARTY RULERS, AND ESPOUSING A GOVERN¬ 
MENT OF, BY, AND FOR THE PEOPLE. 


The Reasons that Led John to Eschew Party Rule and Espouse 
the Rule of the People—What “The Scriptures” Teach on This Subject— 
What Ancient and Modern History Teaches—Surprising Revelations of 
the Secret Convention that Adopted Our Present Federal Constitution— 
Washington’s Farewell Warning to His Countrymen—The Steps That 
Led Up to the Final Eschewing of the Evil of a Government of, by,, 
and for Party Rulers, and the Espousing of a Government of, by, and 
for the People. 


Owing to the fact that John was changing from this old thing 
to that new thing, he was considered by even many of his own friends 
to be somewhat unstable. These friends had not the remotest idea 
that both they and John were, “without knowing,” standing in the 
very midst of war and “earthquakes in divers places” which were 
swallowing up all old things in order that all new things might come 
in,—yea, that the old earths and old heavens, spiritually and polit¬ 
ically, at the command of Him who sat upon the throne saying, “Be¬ 
hold, I make all things new,” were being rolled up like a scroll and 
were passing away in order that “the new earth and new heaven” 
might be established. 

Even John himself up to this time hardly appreciated how it was 
that he had no ease in any old Zion. Neither spiritually nor polit¬ 
ically could he foxlike find a hole, or birdlike find any old last year’s 
“bird nest” of dead twigs and leaves in which to rest his pulsing 
life. The fact is that no man .who has the courage of his convic¬ 
tions could do other than John did in case he should pursue the care¬ 
ful and conscientious course of study in order to find out and know 
for a certainty whether the forward steps that lie just before him are 
going in the right direction. 

No doubt the high-priests and elders who were at ease in the old 
Jerusalem Zion, rotten and tumbling down as it was, had great con- 





PARTY RULERS VERSUS THE PEOPLE. 


367 


tempt for Jesus Christ and all of His apostles who laid the axe at 
the very roots of the fair-seeming trees under which these same 
priests and elders reposed in apparent security as they listened to 
their lullabies of a “little more sleep, a little more slumber/’ The 
rulers are ever asleep when Christ comes. 

During the years that John had abstained from listening to the 
party politicians, with their “promises” and pleas that if they were 
placed in power they would save the country, he was a constant 
reader of ancient and modern history and of the Bible. He never 
advocated procedure along any line of reform unless he found land¬ 
marks and signboards gathered from the Bible clearly pointing out 
such line of going forward as one approved of God. From his youth 
up he had heard much of “authorities ordained of God” and of the 
doctrine known as the “divine right of kings,” that is, the right of 
one man to rule over other men without the consent of the ruled. 
He was 1 eared among a class of slave-owners who were drunk on 
this cup. 

But not more were these slave-holders drunken on a Babylonish 
cup than were a great majority of the so-called “ministers of the 
grace of God” and about all of the “statesmen.” Slave-holders, 
priests, and politicians all combined to strengthen and laud the 
“right of rulers,” and to undermine and weaken and denounce as 
anarchistic and ungodly “the rights of the people.” 

Hence, before finally committing himself to the open advocacy 
of a government of, by, and for the people in place of our present 
government of party politicians, by party politicians, for party poli¬ 
ticians, John determined to “search the Scriptures .” 

His object was to see whether or not the “Ruler of Nations,” 
who is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, approved of the 
people surrendering their sovereignty to a few earthly rulers, 
whether these “rulers” be called kings, czars, emperors, or even 
middle-men, sometimes called “representatives.” He well knew that 
on the spiritual plane no popes, or “fathers,” or rabbis, or “masters” 
were approved by the Lord when He came to earth and spoke to men 
as “God manifest in the flesh;” and he well knew the woe pronounced 
against every one who has a talent and does not use it. 

So, one Sabbath day he locked himself in his room and “searched 
the Scriptures,” and found as follows: 

First, that in the beginning there were no kings or rulers what¬ 
ever except that each father was king and priest in his own house¬ 
hold. Every family sat under its own vine and fig tree. 


368 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Second, when there were differences between neighbor and 
neighbor, these differences were submitted for settlement,to a class 
of wise citizens called “counselors/’ Some of these were women, 
whose court, like that of Deborah, was “under the palm trees.” 

Third, as men fell away from the teachings and life of God, the 
counselor was succeeded by the “judge.” The judge differed from 
the counselor in having the authority to enforce his decisions, while 
the counselor had his decisions acquiesced in without force. 

For generations and generations this form of government con¬ 
tinued. But men became more and more wicked; and as wickedness 
increased wisdom decreased, and individuals and nations kept falling 
down from the laws of God. 

After the fall was about complete we first hear of the kingship 
business. In the ninth chapter of the Book of Judges is an account 
of the selection of the first king, as well as the maledictions pro¬ 
nounced by the p'rophet of God on such a deadly evil. In that chap¬ 
ter is shown 

First, that no man of the olive or fig or grape nature will con¬ 
sent to rule over others. 

Second, that the real nature of a king “ruling over others” is 
that of a “bramble.” 

Third, that “rulers” resort to bribery and hiring of hirelings 
to establish their throne of rule; and resort to violence and bloodshed 
to strengthen and perpetuate their rule. Let each examine the said 
ninth chapter of Judges, and he will see for himself that everything 
here asserted is therein confirmed. 

Another place in which kings are spoken of in the Bible is the 
eighth chapter of first book of Samuel. The following things John 
found stated in that chapter bearing on kingship or rulership: 

First, that those who favored it were those who repudiated the 
lule of God. 

Second, in that chapter both the prophet and Jehovah Himself 
distinctly state the kingly character as being^ that which would ap¬ 
propriate to its own use and aggrandizement the sons, daughters, the 
fields, the vineyards, “even the best of them,” and give them to its 
minions. 

Third, in said chapter is a catalogue of woes and ills that would 
come to the people in . case they should choose a king to rule over 
them, which woes and ills all history shows have followed in the train 
of the despot, or king, or personal ruler, even as effects spring from 
and follow causes. It is a bottomless pit evil. 


PARTY RULERS VERSUS THE PEOPLE. 


369 


Fourth, the next thing that John found as the principal element 
to make up a kingly character was physical or brute force; because 
it is stated that the man chosen as king was ‘‘higher than any of the 
people from his shoulders and upward.” 

As a matter of course, all kingly rule rests on force, on swords, 
on bayonets, on bombshells, on standing armies, on great navies, and 
pretorian guards. See also Chapter XII, wherein it is recorded 
that the people acknowledged their sin in choosing a king to rule 
over them. 

On the evening of the Sabbath day John rose from an all-day 
search of the Scriptures with the full conviction that a government 
by kings, whether those kings be born or elected, whether they be 
called czars or middle-men “having all power of making and admin¬ 
istering laws,” is an evil, is contrary to the wisdom of God, and that 
a government of, by, and for the people is the remedy for our present 
government of, by, and for the party rulers. 

He now proceeded to see what history teaches on the subject of 
what is called popular or a people’s government, in which the people 
are the source and the end of all government. 

In ancient history he found such things as those stated by 
Plutarch about the ancient democracies, where the people voted di¬ 
rectly for and against all laws by which they were bo be governed, 
as the following: 

“Like bees, the people acted with one impulse for the public 
good. They were possessed with a thirst for honor and high spirit 
bordering-on insanity, and had not a wish but for their country.” 

Finding such to be the unanimous voice of ancient history, John 
turned his eye to see if he could find some remnant (for the Bible 
proclaims that the Divine Providence always preserves a “remnant” 
of what is good and wise) of a government in which the whole body 
of the people were sovereigns. 

He remembered that somewhere he had read a debate on the 
subject of “What Government is Best For the People?” Turning to 
his library, he found a book in which this debate was recorded in full. 

In this debate a Roman Catholic hierarchist advocated the gov¬ 
ernment of the pope, while some misrepresentative of republicanism 
advocated a government by our present system of middle-men, and 
an advocate of the pure and undefiled rule of the people, Editor 
Henry Watterson, brought forward a v remnant representative of pure 
democracy as illustrated by the government of Switzerland, about 
which he said: 


13 


370 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


That the people—all the people—voted directly for and against 
all the laws by which they were governed, and, as a logical conse¬ 
quence, the following things were stated, which are proved by actual 
history: 

First, that the people of Switzerland, though small in numbers, 
and walled in by such monarchies as Russia, Germany, and Austria, 
have the spirit of the William Tells who never cringe the knee to the 
Geslers. 

Second, that the “Swiss people are the happiest people in the 
world.” 

Third, that after a residence of a year among them, he “could 
not but stand with uncovered head in presence of such a happy race 
of freemen.” 

(See Watterson’s Address at the Quadrangular Debate at Phila¬ 
delphia in the year 1893.) 

John then turned to drink from the fountains in the hill coun¬ 
tries of our own land and found such sentiments as the following: 

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the 
consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes 
destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it; 
laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such 
form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.—• 
Declaration of American Independence. 

All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments 
are founded on their authority and instituted for "their benefit. . . . And 

the people have the inalienable right to alter, change, or abolish their govern¬ 
ment in such manner as they may think expedient.— Article 1, Section 2, Texas 
State Constitution. 

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and 
to alter their constitutions of government.— Washington's Farewell Address. 

Some say that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. 
Can he then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found 
angels in the persons of kings to govern them? Let history answer this 
question.— Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address. 

The whole body of the people is the sovereign legislative, judicial, and 
executive power for itself.— Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph. 

Our political creed is, without a dissenting voice that can be heard, that 
the will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people the end 
of all legitimate government upon earth.— John Quincy Adams’ First Message. 

Our system of government was by its framers deemed an experiment, 
and they therefore consistently provided a mode of remedying its defects.— 
Andrew Jackson. 

Experience proves that in proportion as agents to execute the will of the 
people are multiplied there is danger of their wishes being frustrated. Some 


PARTY RULERS VERSUS THE PEOPLE. 


371 


may be unfaithful; all are liable to err. So far, therefore, as the people can 
with convenience speak, it is safer for them to express their own will.— 
President Jackson's Inaugural Address. 

A government of the people, by the people, and for the people must not 
perish from the face of the earth.— Abraham Lincoln. 

The government must be recovered by the American people. Direct 
legislation is the ideal means for this peaceable revolution.— Henry D. Lloyd , 
the “Fighter of Trusts” 

Direct legislation is no longer merely desirable; it has become essential 
to the safety, if not the continued existence, of the Republic. A few years 
ago the representative system was in decay—now it is dead and stinketh.— 
New York Journal. 

The legislatures are passing, and in many cases have already passed, 
out of the hands of the people, and are now regularly bought up by money 
furnished by the corporations to a “boss” who undertakes to procure or to 
prevent such legislation as the3 r desire.— New York Evening Post. 

Confused or blended issues are'the greatest political dangers of our time. 
The referendum hath the immense advantage of disentangling issues.— 
Democracy and IJberty. 

Our political campaigns are but “Ware of the Roses.” Jefferson was 
right in his “Trust the people.” Lincoln was right in his idea of “a govern¬ 
ment of, by, and for the people.”— Congressman W. L. Stark. 

Direct legislation is the common denominator for all factions of reform.— 
S. W. Weaver, one of the people. 

Direct legislation is the only complete and specific cure for bribery.— 
Prof. Commons, of Syracuse University. 

Representation does not represent because no one man can completely 
represent another. Hearsay evidence is excluded in all courts the world over, 
because no man can tell exactly what another man says.— Eltweed Pomeroy, 
Editor Direct Legislation Record. 

He then read an account of the secret debates in the Federal 
Convention that framed our present constitution, to see whether or 
not the sentiments found in the hill countries of American statesman¬ 
ship had been embodied in our present Constitution. The impres¬ 
sions made on him from reading these debates are vividly expressed 
in a letter written and published by him: 

JEFFERSON OR GERRY; FRANKLIN OR DICKINSON; THE KING OR 

THE PEOPLE? 

We confess that we were a little disappointed when we began to select 
extracts from high authorities to place in our “Fountains in the Hill Country” 
department, that in the Federal Constitution we could not find such radical 
declarations of the rights of the people as we found in the Bible, and in the 
Declaration of Independence, and in the constitutions of the liberty-loving 
states, and in the messages of great commoners of the people, such as Jef¬ 
ferson, Franklin, Jackson, Lincoln, and Benton. 


372 


JOHN COUNSELLOR S EVOLUTION. 


The following will explain how this happened, and the reasons why the 
people were put In quarantine, as it were, off from their own power. 

The convention that formed the present constitution was held in secret— 
the sessions were behind closed doors—and not until the days of Andrew Jack- 
son were the recorded debates in that convention made public. Jackson had 
but little veneration for things that didn’t work in the interests of the people, 
and from his first inaugural address to the close of his eight years’ term, was 
constantly suggesting changes in the constitution so that the people might have 
more direct voice and power in the government. As usual, his recommenda¬ 
tions of change were met by the old fetichism which always endeavors to 
beat back progress, even as the scribes and pharisees beat down the Christ by 
a cry of blasphemy when he spoke against their old, musty traditions. In 
1839 a Jacksonian Congress, in order that the true in\yardness of things about 
the so-called “infallible constitution” might be brought to light, had Madison’s 
Journal of the Constitutional Convention, which had long been secret, pub¬ 
lished. 

Recollect that Jefferson was not a member of this convention. Old Ben 
Franklin and his co-worker, James Wilson, from Pennsylvania, were the 
champions of the people’s right§, but they were outvoted by the men from 
whose speeches we extract the following: 

Roger Sherman, of Connecticut said: “I oppose the election of mem¬ 
bers of the National Legislature (Congress) by the people. The people, 
immediately, should have as little to do as may be about the government.” 

Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, said: “The evils we experience flow 
from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the 
dupes of pretended patriots.” This was a blow at Jefferson and his kind. 

Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, said: “An election by the people is an 
impracticable mode.” This explains why South Carolina for over fifty years 
never gave the people the right to vote for even presidential electors, but 
had the legislature to elect them. 

Mr. Dickinson, of Delaware, said: “I consider a limited monarchy as 
one of the best governments in the world.” This seems a harsh expression in 
these days, but we must remember that up to the Revolution all our fore¬ 
fathers had been loyal subjects of an almost absolute monarchy, and we have 
divine authority as well as experience for the fact that all evolution from 
old to new is not straightway: “Men do not straightway drink new wine, 
saying the old is better.” The Christ met this “old is better” fallacy. 

Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, said he “was afraid to submit the proposed 
constitution to the people,” and that in his quarter “the people had the wild¬ 
est ideas of government in the world. They even wanted to abolish the Senate 
of Massachusetts and give the power to the legislature.” The senate was 
not elected by the people, but the legislature was. Mr. Gerry was evidently 
afraid of the “wild” ideas of thre people. There are a great many Gerrys in 
this day who are now called “Gerrymanders.” 

Even Mr. Madison, who afterward under the tutelage of Jefferson got 
to be a conservative Democrat, but not as strong as was Monroe, as a member 


PARTY RULERS VERSUS THE PEOPLE. 


375 


of the convention was a little bit “skeery” of the people, and wanted some 
arrangement to distract the people so that they could not be very effective.in 
getting what they wanted, and he said: “In a republican government the 
majority when united have always an opportunity. The only remedy is to 
enlarge the sphere, and thereby divide the community into so great a number 
of interests and parties that in the first place the majority will not be likely 
at the same moment to have a common interest separate from that of the 
whole; and in the second place, that in case they should have such an in¬ 
terest they may not happen to unite in pursuit of it.” In other words, even 
Madison had some kind of a wild idea to distract the people. Most certainly 
this has been accomplished. 

On June 18, 1787, Alexander Hamilton addressed the convention and said 
in his private opinion he had no scruple in saying, supported as he was .by so 
many of the wise and good, that the British government was the best in the 
world, and he doubted much if anything short of it would do in America, 
and said: “Let one branch of the legislature hold their places for life, at 
least during good behavior. Let the executive also be for life.” 

The whole debate in the convention which framed the constitution teemed 
with such declarations as the foregoing. No wonder that it contains pro¬ 
visos for vetoes by one man, and supreme one-man “opinions,” and senates 
and supreme judges not elected. No wonder Mr. Randolph refused to sign 
it, saying that it was a bold strike for a monarchy or an aristocracy, and that 
he* would not support a plan that would end in tyranny. No wonder Vlr. 
‘Mason refused to sign it, saying it would end in a monarchy or tyrannical 
aristocracy, which of the two he was in doubt, but one or the other he was 
sure. No wonder that this constitution was never submitted to the people 
for adoption. Even the delegates who adopted it were not elected by the 
people. The people were not “in it” from beginning to end. Jefferson, on 
account of his opposing the provision of vetoes and other' matters which 
failed to recognize the people, was denounced as a “Jacobin,” an “agrarian,” 
as a “stirrer up of the poor against the rich.” 

The debates teemed with so many denunciations of democracy, or the rule 
of the people, that a motion was put and nearly carried to burn the journals, 
for fear that the people who were called to the field by the Declaration of 
Independence and fought the battles of liberty against the divine right of King 
George would again revolt at that which Randolph and Mason said would end 
in either a monarchy or tyrannical aristocracy. To save from burning they 
resolved to keep the debates secret. Sufficient delegates finally voted.for it— 
many of them doing so because it had a clause permitting it to be amended, 
and so stated that this was the reason they voted for it. 

A compromise was made on the proposition of having the executive and 
the senate for life by adopting a judiciary for life, and not even let the people 
elect the judiciary. So kingship triumphed in that department of government 
which has the last say at the laws by which the people are to be governed. 

Direct legislation will prevent the prophecies of the great Virginians, 
Randolph and Mason, and the fears of the great Pennsylvanians, Franklin and 


374 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


I % 

Wilson, from being realized in the government ending in a monarchy, or a 
tyrannical aristocracy, or a plutocracy. 

Jefferson and Franklin were direct legislationists, whilst Gerry and Ham¬ 
ilton were afraid of the people. 

As matter of course, it was scarcely to be expected that so great a change 
as that from the divine right of kings to that of the divine right of the 
people would be made at once. Only such humanitarian philosophers as 
Benjamin Franklin, and such democratic statesmen as Jefferson, and such 
sturdy yeomen as Wilson, all of whom really believed in what was declared 
in the Declaration of Independence, which made even the making of any 
constitution whatever possible,—only men of this kind, men who had the 
courage of their convictions, opposed inserting any monarchical provisions in 
the constitution and did all they could to affirm that, in the language of 
Jefferson in his letter to Edmund Randolph, “The whole body of the people 
is the sovereign legislative, judicial, and executive power for itself.” 

Jefferson had written the Declaration of Independence, which said: 
“Governments are instituted among men deriving their powers from the con¬ 
sent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes 
destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, 
and lay its foundations on such principles and organize its powers in such 
form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their happiness and safety.” 
Hence Jefferson opposed the kingly features of our present constitution which 
the direct legislationists of this good year 1898 seek to eliminate,—which pro¬ 
visions were only voted for by a majority of the convention “for trial,” and 
with a provision that if found unsatisfactory could be amended, altered, or 
abolished. 

It appears that the time has come to decide that Jefferson, Franklin, and 
Wilson were right, and that Dickinson, the limited monarchist, and Hamilton, 
the lover of the British idea, and Gerry, the man “afraid of the people,” were 
wrong. 

Direct legislation will carry into the constitution the very ideas advocated 
by Jefferson, Franklin, and Wilson and eliminate the kingly ideas of Hamilton, 
Dickinson, and Gerry. 

Which side are you on, dear reader? After over one hundred years of 
an open Bible, free schools, and professed sovereignty of the people are we 
not ready to move up at least along the lines of liberty? 

We summarize the issues in the convention of 1787 between those who 
were afraid of the people and wanted at least a limited monarchy, and those 
who wanted the people sovereign in all departments of government: 

THE EXECUTIVE. 

The monarchist element wanted a president holding for life and having 
a kingly veto, and not elected by the people. The democratic element 
struggled for a president elected by the people for a short term and without 
any veto power. The monarchists succeeded to the extent of not having the 
president elected by the people and in giving him the kingly veto. 


PARTY RULERS VERSUS THE PEOPLE. 


375 


The direct legislationists in 1898 contend that Jefferson and Franklin 
were right, and that Hamilton and Dickinson were wrong. How, reader, 
do you stand on this issue? 

THE LEGISLATIVE. 

The monarchists contended for a senate to hold for life not elective by the 
people. The democrats contended for direct election by the people and 
for a limited time. The matter was compromised by an election for a limited 
time but not by direct vote of the people. 

Direct legislationists stand with Jefferson and Franklin on this issue. 
How do you stand, dear reader? 

THE JUDICIARY. 

Hamilton and the monarchist element consented to a compromise on 
matters relating to the executive and legislative departments on condition that 
the monarchical element should be retained in the judicial department; and 
they had about their own way in establishing our present judicial system in 
which the judge is supreme, is not elected by the people, and holds for life. 
It appears strange that this could be so, but when we consider : 

That the convention was not elected by the people; 

That they were afraid to, and never did, submit their work to the people; 

That scarcely a man who had signed the Declaration of Independence 
or who had fought in the Revolution was a member of the convention; 

That “men do not straightway desire new wine”—and perhaps at that 
time the most potential matter was that on account of the turbulence in 
France, then existing, the monarchists had a present argumentum ad homi- 
ncm that, like all things of present furor, had its weight; and, 

That as usual the hangers-on of wealth, like Dickinson, and the barons 
of aristocracy, like Hamilton, were occupying places in this convention which 
in the councils of the Revolution had been filled by such men as the Carrolls 
of Carrollton, the Henrys of the Hanover Slashers, and the Jeffersons of 
Monticello. 

As usual in such assemblies, the people were not only quarantined off from 
all power, but were emasculated of all potency of political fatherhood, ana 
turned on the outskirts as mere eunuchs in the palaces of the kings of a 
kind of Babylon wherein the people are imaginary sovereigns and the middle¬ 
men are more or less unlimited monarchs. 

Direct legislationists propose to take up the issue which was made arid 
compromised in 1787 in favor of Hamilton, Dickinson, and Gerry, and have 
it reversed and decided in favor of what Jefferson contended for when he 
wrote to Edmund Randolph, a member of the convention, that “the whole body 
of the people should be the legislative, judicial, and executive power for 
itself.” This can only be accomplished by direct legislation, and that in a most 
strikingly simple, orderly, and expeditious manner. 

Shall the issue that was made and succeeded in 1776 (see Declaration of 
Independence) and compromised away in 1787 (see present constitutional 
provisions) be again raised and settled in favor of the people by the close of 


376 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


the present century? All but supines, those afraid of the people, those who 
desire to be kings and want the people to be mere lackeys and eunuchs in their 
palaces, all but these will take up the issue declared by Jefferson and his com- 
patroits in 1776 in the Declaration of Independence fought for by Washington 
and his soldiers from Bunker Hill in 1775, to Yorktown in 1781, contended 
for by Franklin, but temporarily checked and overthrown by Hamilton, Dick¬ 
inson, and Gerry in 1787. 

To this end the civic army of direct legislation is forming, and until this 
end is reached its colors will be kept flying, its legions answering the battle 
call, and march from conquest to conquest until the people become direct 
sovereigns in all departments of government—legislative, judicial, and exec¬ 
utive. There never has been and never can be any peace short of this end. 
This is the perfect end, and gradually we must go on to this perfection. 

Another strong paper that led John to eschew the rule of the 
party rulers was Washington’s Farewell Address to his country¬ 
men, in which he says : 

Let me warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects 
of the spirit of party. This spirit exists under different shapes in all govern¬ 
ments, more or less stifled; but in those of the popular form it is seen in 
its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy! The alternate domina¬ 
tion of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, habitual 
to party dissension, which in different ages has perpetrated the most horrid 
enormities and is itself a frightful despotism. 

This leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The 
disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek 
security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and, sooner or 
later, the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than 
his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation 
on the ruins of public liberty. 

And even a greater than George Washington, Jehovah Himself, 
in the 8th and 12th chapters of 1st Samuel, warns the people of the 
unending woe that comes to a people when they abdicate political 
power and vest it in a set of rulers who are masters instead of ser¬ 
vants of the people, of which rulers, governors, law-makers, and 
judges the world has seen many most virulent types. 

* And when this Jehovah came down to the earth by clothing 
Himself with a human body, He repeated the same idea; for it is 
written: ‘‘Jesus called and said: Ye know that the princes of the 
Gentiles exercise dominion over them and they that are great 
exercise authority upon them. But it shall not he so among you; 
but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, 
and your chiefs your servants.” 

All history, both of church and state, shows the direful fruits of 
a few men ruling over many. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 


THE GREAT CHANGE FROM THE PARTY POLITICIANS 
TO THE PEOPLE. 


The Present Route of Legislation Beset From Start to Finish With 
Dangers, Pitfalls, and “Deadlocks’’—Under Direct Legislation the People 
Would Be at Hand to Protect Themselves and Their Laws at Every Juncture 
—How Direct Legislation Cannot Be Had, and How It Can Be Estab¬ 
lished—Specimens of Direct Legislation—Constitutional Amendments. 


John Counsellor being convinced that great changes must take 
place on the political as well as on the spiritual plane of life, and 
seeing great promise in the form of government known as the direct 
legislative system, he proceeded to establish a monthly journal styled 
Direct Legislation. This journal had at its initial column head the 
following: 

Direct Legislation is an independent monthly journal devoted to the res¬ 
toration of all political power direct to the people, to be used by the people 
for their own safety and welfare. This restoration can be accomplished 
through the power involved in direct legislation. And the people, being re¬ 
stored to their heritage of “all political power,” can proceed to use it as their 
experience and intelligence shall dictate. 

DIRECT LEGISLATION COMPREHENDS. 

First, the right of the people, by proper petition, to present a law to the 
legislative body to be acted on by such body. This is called the initiative. 

Second, in case the legislative body refuses to pass the law asked for by 
the people, or should pass a law not petitioned for by the people, that such 
law, when asked for by a certain fixed percentage of voters shall be referred 
to the voters for adoption or rejection. This is called the “referendum.” 

Third: When a public official acts, or refuses to act, in such manner 
as a fixed percentage of voters deem wrongful such official shall stand for 
approval or disapproval; and if disapproved he shall resign and pay all ex¬ 
penses of election. This is called the “imperative mandate.” 

( 377 ) 







378 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

Thus by the initiative, the referendum, and imperative mandate, all of 
which are comprehended in the term direct legislation, we will have a govern¬ 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people. 

The leading editorial in the first number of this journal was as 
follows: 

THE GREAT CHANGE. 

That some great change in governmental management is longed for is 
shown by the almost universal discontent and uneasiness of the people. This 
discontent is almost akin to that “desperation of despair” which precipitates 
revolution. 

That some change is necessary is admitted by all except a few who are 
fattening on present evils. 

That this change is at hand is evidenced by signs seen on all sides. To 
mention these signs separately would require every page of this journal. 
Hence we state, without further ado than the statement, that a change is 
longed for, and is necessary, and is at hand. 

Nearly all great changes come in ways not expected. The Divine Provi¬ 
dence leads the blind by ways not known beforehand. Many look to this 
and many to that. Some say “lo here,” and some say “lo there,” and find 
these “lo heres” and “lo theres” mere reeds in the wilderness shaken of the 
wind, whilst the Christ is in their midst and coming to his own, and is “not 
known of his own,” because He does not come in the way they expected. 
Most people look for the change to come by putting one party out and another 
party in. Some expect a change by the passage of some law on this or that 
subject, such as tariff or free silver. Sonfe expect that the displacement of 
one set of pie-eaters from the public pie counter and the placement of a 
still hungrier set of pie-eaters at the public lunch stand, will be an all-sufficient 
remedy for all existing evils. Some think that if the people will work harder 
and eat less that the millennium will set in. 

The truth is always a witness of itself; and that the great change, so far 
as government is, or can be, concerned, is the change of rulership from 
partisan oligarchs direct to the people is self-evident. 

It is self-evident that the oligarchs have failed. No intelligent man 
denies this. It is evident that like will produce like, and that oligarchs pro¬ 
duce more oligarchs. It is evident that every man thinks more of himself 
and of his own than he does of another, and that oligarchs have run everything 
for their own benefit and not for the people. No honest man can deny this. 

Neither in constitutions, nor in declarations of independence, nor in any 
magna chartas, nor in any code of common sense, nor in the commandments 
of Christ, can one word be found that government is of, by, and for middle¬ 
men. Yet we have such a'government. On the other hand, all constitutions, 
all declarations of independence, all magna chartas of liberty, all codes of 
common sense, and all the commandments of Christ utter speech unto speech 
that all government is of, by, and for the people—even the Sabbath day itself 
being for men, and not men for the Sabbath day. 




/ 


FROM OLD POLITICS TO NEW. 


379 


Then, this being so, what greater change can we have than a change of 
all political power from the hands of middle-men to the hands of the people? 
We will only introduce one example to show the difference. Take for instance 
the present legislative road along which every measure has to travel before it 
becomes a law. This road is filled with pitfalls, slippery places, quicksands, 
hills, and hollows, and is lined on every side and at the beginning, and all 
along the route and at the end, with thieves, robbers, and traitors. It abounds 
with dangers and gauntlets to such an extent that there is no wonder that even 
“platform demands” never get through—no wonder that much of “promise” 
never is practiced—no wonder that so many great and meritorious measures 
“die a-bornin’.” 

Let us take land reform as an illustration: 

1. Some minority party espouses this reform. It puts it in its platform 
in very general terms—so general that only the general principle is in the 
platform. This party goes to the country and talks land reform on general 
principles—so general that no exact idea of how reform is to come is agreed 
on by even men of the same party. 

2. However, this minority party succeeds by this or that, and gets a 
majority in Congress. Here, perhaps, the party becomes like other parties— 
they had merely talked land reform on the hustings to enable them to get up 
the spoils of office. Such cases are numerous. But we give the party the 
benefit of the doubt, and say that they honestly believe in and honestly in¬ 
tend to give the people a good land law. Right here is a startling danger. 
The party has come into power on the “general principle” of land reform. 
A general principle is like steam, mere vapor until embodied in an engine. 
The principle must be embodied in a definite law. The question now is, what 
law? A, B, C, and D are all land reformers on principle, and all belong to 
the same party, and are equally honest, A proposes the single land tax as 
the only way of effecting land reform; B proposes a graduated land tax; 
C proposes limitation of land ownership; D holds that God Almighty knew 
more about land which He made than men do, hence he proposes to adopt a 
land law similar to the one enacted by Jehovah, wherein all land by gradual 
reclamation and proper compensation returned every fifty years from the land¬ 
lords to the people. Now, there are thousands of good arguments for each of 
the above kind of laws, as well as for several other kinds. A, B, C, D, and the 
several other members, each propose their particular law, as each is in honor 
bound to propose what he deems the best. Speechifying begins. Debate 
enlarges as it goes. Substitutes, amendments, and provisos are interjected. 
Consultation gives way to contention; debate gives way to dispute. The 
hawks and the eagles of the lobby appear hovering about the carcass, always 
with a sharp talon (talent) and with an eye trained and practiced as to the 
best place to stick it in the carcass for their own interest. Confusion ensues. 
The committee, which is a body peculiarly adapted for wresting power from 
the many and putting it in the hands of the few, is called in, or rather the 
whole matter is referred to “the committee,” which has been stocked by the 
czar of the house, and which 'is a very small point to center a few million 


380 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


dollars on with its powerful effect in influencing what the committee does. 
And a committee can do a thousand things. It can keep back; it can amend; 
it can make over a bill to such a degree that the original proposer will neither 
know or support his own bill when reported back with insidious amend¬ 
ments and nullifying provisos. But suppose that A’s proposed law, after 
months and months of debate and delay, does come to a vote and pass. It 
is not yet a law, for it has to run another gauntlet. 

This gauntlet is the senate, a body not elected by the people, and very 
far away from the people. Here under their peculiar laws one man can keep 
off a vote for the whole session. Here A’s measure may be amended. This 
requires that it be sent back to the house to run through again the whole 
gamut of this body of czars, committees, and caucuses. But suppose A’s 
measure gets through the senate; it is not yet a law, for there is the presi¬ 
dential veto gauntlet. 

Here one man has a bigger vote than two-thirds of the house and senate 
combined. But suppose A’s law runs this often fateful gauntlet; then comes 
in the supreme court gauntlet. 

As a matter of history it is notorious that “no one man as supreme” 
has ever been favorable to the people. So we see what a road any and all 
measures have to run along from beginning to end in order to become a law 
under the middle-man system. On this road every measure first begins its 
life in some partisan party convention. This convention is controlled by 
machine manipulators with patronage and personal preferment as chief in¬ 
centive and chief end of all aim and effort; and then has to run the gauntlet 
of a partisan election, a partisan legislature, a partisan executive, and a 
partisan judiciary, thronged with bosses, steering committees, cavernous cau¬ 
cuses, czars of the house, one-man power, middle-men, misrepresentatives 
and procurators of pelf; each and all subject to human frailties which the 
lobby, with its wisdom of the serpent and its millions of money, knows so 
well how to play upon for the benefit, not of the people, but of axe-grinders 
in spoils and mere personal aggrandizement. On this road the people are not 
“in it” at the beginning or along the route of travel; and at every step 
every measure gets farther away from their power, and more and more 
it goes into the power of fewer and fewer men who are farther and farther 
off from the people; and the people are not “in it” in the end. From this road 
let us turn to the great road of the people in which the people are “in it” at 
the beginning and accompany every measure along the entire route, and are 
fast by its side in the end. This road is direct legislation. Through direct 
legislation the people get into and exercise their power in every department 
of government. 

The people can initiate or propose laws. The people can have all laws 
referred to them for final action. The people can place or displace all public 
servants at their pleasure. The people can between 8 o’clock a. m. and 6 
o’clock p. m. of any given day decide what laws they desire to be governed 
by—all of which is shown by the following: 


I 


FROM OLD POLITICS TO NEW. 381 

HOW DIRECT LEGISLATION PUTS AND KEEPS THE PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT. 

• 

Our government consists of the legislative, executive, and judicial depart¬ 
ments. These constitute the entirety of what is called government. 

At present the people have no direct power whatever in either of these 
departments. Legislators enact all laws; the executive kills by veto, or exe¬ 
cutes or .refuses to execute; and the judge construes and often renders laws, 
by his mere “opinion,” absolutely “null and void;” and all this is done by 
legislator, governor, or judge in utter disregard of the people. As recent ex¬ 
amples, note the income tax and the Texas anti-trust law. 

Now under direct legislation none of these departments will be abolished, 
but each and all so reformed or reconstructed that the people will have all 
power in each and all of them. 

LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT. 

Now all laws must originate in the house or senate; and all laws must 
be passed by the house and senate. Under direct legislation the people 
themselves can initiate or originate laws by having a law drafted and sent 
to the legislative body. Thus the people are in this department from the 
beginning. 

If the legislative body passes or refuses to pass a law, by proper petition 
the people will have the right to vote direct on that law before it becomes 
binding, and their vote is final. Thus it is seen that the people will be in the 
legislative department from beginning to end,—will be the alpha and omega 
in the legislative department. 

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT. 

The executive, as the name implies, will only execute laws. The kingly 
prerogative of the veto, by which one man has more power than two-thirds 
of the people, will be taken away. Jefferson opposed the veto being granted 
in the beginning. 

In case the executive executes or refuses to execute a law in manner and 
spirit which the people deem wrong, then, by proper petition, the executive 
must stand at once for re-election. If the people, by their votes, approve 
his action, then all right, as the people are the ones to do as they please with 
their own. If they refuse to approve, the executive steps down and out, and 
pays the expense of the election, for which expense he has given bond when 
first elected. This gives the people complete power over the executive. 

JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT. 

Under direct legislation all judges will be elected by the people. The 
more than kingly power of a judge to’ render null and void a law by his 
“opinion” will be taken away; and judges will only construe but not kill laws. 

In case a judge construes a law in a manner and spirit unsatisfactory 
to the people, by proper petition this judge must stand at once for re-election; 
and the people have a chance to approve or disapprove his action. If the 


382 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


people disapprove, the judge goes out and another comes in; and the out¬ 
going judge pays all expenses of the election. 

What greater power can the people possibly have over all their laws and 
over all the administrators of their laws than that herein indicated given by 
direct legislation. And if the constitution says that “the people have all 
power/’ why should they not have some orderly and common-sense way of 
exercising it? Why have a talent and not use it? The failure to use it 
causes it to be taken away and the non-user, as is now the case, cast into 
a state of “weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth;” because just now the 
people ar,e doing little else than weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth 
on officials from president to postmaster. 

Is not the change from the road of the present legislation to the road of 
the people “The Great Change,” even such as might be a sign of the second 
coming of the Son of Man? 

In public speeches and in his journal John would endeavor to 
warn the people as to the way in which a direct legislative govern¬ 
ment would never come, such as 

First, there are those who believe that some particular party favoring 
direct legislation, as well as a great many other things, must elect its “party 
nominees,” from constable to president, before the day of the people will come. 
The advocates of this plan make no distinction between “party rule” and 
“the rule of the people,” and fly in the face of all history and in the face 
of all human nature, when they hope that a close corporation, such as “a 
party” must necessarily be when it gets in power, will part with that power 
for the benefit of the other fellow—or the people! This never has been done, 
and never will be done until the Ethiopian partisan changes his skin into that 
of a patriot. 

Still these good-meaning reformers who look to this way of evolving out 
of partisanism and by partisanism a government of the people and by the 
people forget the eternal and divine principle that “like produces like,” “every 
seed producing after its kind world without end;” partisanism producing 
partisanism, with its daughters of the horseleech never satisfied appetite for 
pie and personal preferment. This class also, in coupling many other things 
in its party platform with direct legislation, compels voters in order to vote 
their party ticket to Vote for many kinds of men and many kinds of pleasures, 
some of which they believe in and some of which they don’t, thus compelling 
voters to swallow a good deal of dirt to get a little sugar. This causes dis¬ 
traction and disintegration. This class also fails to discern the difference 
between causes and effects, and seeks the things of a kingdom of the people 
before first seeking the kingdom or ruling power of the people itself, which is 
contrary to the primal principle of “seek ye first the kingdom,” and when this 
is established “all other good things will be added,” as naturally as vegetables 
will come forth from an established vegetable kingdom. It is a solemn 
truth that no good effects of government will ever come for the people without 
first establishing a government of and by the people, such as direct legislation 
will do. 


FROM OLD POLITICS TO NEW. 


383 


The putting of “party rule” in place of the “rule of the people,” and the 
compelling of voters to have a unanimity of appetite to swallow all kinds 
of hash before they can partake of the particular kind which is agreeable.to 
their taste, and the inverted procedure of trying to get the products of a well 
organized and well worked farm before getting and preparing the farm to 
raise the products; this aforesaid trinity of mistakes will always end in mis¬ 
carriage, as they always have ended. No rationally minded man can, on 
general principle, deny this, not can any well-informed man deny it as a fact. 

Second, there is another class of honest and hopeful reformers who believe 
in faith without works; and without adopting any definite line of procedure 
whatever, except talk, talk, talk, go on talking and expecting that, in some 
Micawber-like way, somehow and at some time in the great unknown some¬ 
where, a four-squared government of, by, and for the people, will “turn up!” 
All such are doves with all the innocency of dovedom, but without that wis¬ 
dom of the serpent which is equally enjoined and necessary to keep the dove 
itself from flying up against the fowler’s snare. All such have ever been and 
ever will be everlastingly snared by the partisan political place seekers and 
served up as mere dainty morsels where supple and serpentine politicians 
fare sumptuously every day. We could cite dozens of historical instances of 
this snaring of doves. 

Third, there is another class of reformers who honestly believe that 
revolution, with its accompaniments of blood and fire, is the way to a govern¬ 
ment of, by, and for the people. This class forgets that domestic war is 
destructive and not constructive. They forget that history shows that in civil 
wars men get drunk on blood, only to vomit up crime, and as in France, 
the guillotiners of to-day are the guillotined of to-morrow, and that the better 
class of people, to escape the mob, seek peace under the shadow of a monarch. 

We, then, if we are not to get a change—not get a constitutional change 
that will do away with a government of middle-men, by middle-men, and for 
middle-men, such as we now have, and in its place establish a government of, 
by, and for the people, if we are not to get such an amendment by “our party” 
getting into all places of pie and power, from constable to president, or by 
zealously waiting for something to “turn up” in some undefined way, some 
time, or somewhere, or by the destroying death angel of civil revolution, then 
how can we get it? 

The answer to this is simple. Let all who favor such an amendment 
proceed at once to organize; for without concert of action such as is only 
to be had through organization nothing will or can be done. 

The most perfect and convenient form of organization was indicated by 
the Divine Mind in the simple sentence, “Wherever two or three *re 
gathered together.” This was the first organization of the Christian Church. 
It had no diocesan existence, but existed in households, in caves, in the 
forests, by the seaside, anywhere and everywhere, “wherever two or three” 
might be “gathered together.” With such an organization, and no other, 
for the first one hundred years the Christian Church had greater power and 
success than it ever has had since. So wherever “two or three,” if not more, 


384 


JOHN COUNSELLOR S EVOLUTION. 


can be found in any household, or neighborhood, or school district, or in 
any town, city, county, State, who favor direct legislation, let these two 
or three gather together in a direct legislation club. Let the only test of 
membership in these clubs be that they favor the restriction of power to the 
people, and when the people have power to act directly on laws, that every 
member can present to the people his particular reform provided he can get 
a reasonable number of voters to join him in such presentations. 

Neighborhood clubs might meet in a central county club, and county clubs 
in State clubs, and State clubs in national clubs. The work of these clubs 
would be 

ist. To educate themselves in all things appertaining to direct legis¬ 
lation. 

2d. To educate others by disseminating literature. 

3d. To circulate petitions asking the legislative body to submit to the 
people a constitutional amendment, as herein indicated. 

Such clubs, like the sub-alliances of the Farmers’ Alliance in the days 
of its neighborly ‘‘first-love,” would break down all middle walls of partition 
and in one year would create such a public sentiment that no legislator who 
had any semblance of respect for the people would reject their petition for the 
submission to a vote of the people of an amendment such as would restore 
power to the people. “Ask and ye shall receive,” is the divine way of getting 
such things. After such an amendment was submitted, these clubs could 
push its adoption. After it was adopted, these clubs could discuss and suggest 
the laws by which it could be made operative. And after the amendment 
and the laws to carry it into effect were adopted, these clubs could disband, 
like the army of 1776 disbanded when it had wrested the power from alien 
rulers and vested it in the people. 




CHAPTER XXXIX. 


PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. HOW A GREAT EVIL 
CAN BE LEGALLY REMEDIED. 


Proportional Representation—Tom Johnson’s Bill on Same—Pro- 
portional Representation Would Give Minorities Their Rights—The 
Great Red Dragon and the Woman Confront Each Other. 


In a circular letter directed to Major C. C. Cummins, of Fort 
Worth, Colonel C. H. Jenkins, of Brownwood, and other persons 
favoring a government of, by, and for the people in Texas, and ask¬ 
ing for a public conference to promote same, John Counsellor said: 

If we are to have what is called representative government, it will be 
admitted that the more the people are represented the better it will be. The 
most superficial person can not but recognize that under our present system 
at all times large and respectable minorities, and even in some cases a majority, 
of the people are totally unrepresented in all councils of government. As, 
for instance, here in Texas the Democrats, with a vote of 275,000, have twelve 
members of Congress; while the Populists, with a vote of some 150,000. 
have none; and the Republicans, with a vote of some 100,000, have but one, 
and often none; while that eminently select set of voters who are known as 
Prohibitionists are forever suppressed and silenced. Can this great evil be 
remedied? Most certainly. There is no evil that cannot be remedied; and 
most assuredly, when the remedy is right at hand and can be applied legally 
and in an orderly way, it should be done. 

The least consideration of this subject will lead all to see that the ap¬ 
plication of the Principle of Proportional Representation in the selection of 
public officials, especially of the representative kind, would be a perfect 
remedy for the present unrepresentative evil. And further, every citizen who 
is not altogether selfish and unneighborly, must concede that the principle of 
proportional representation is based on the highest wisdom and righteousness, 
inasmuch as it involves: 

First, the common-sense fairness that dictates that in any joint-stock . 
business concern, all joint stock-holders should be represented in the business 
meetings where the interest of the stock held is acted upon. This is a uni¬ 
versally admitted and practiced principle. County, State, and National gov¬ 
ernments are but joint-stock business concerns in which at least all grand 
subdivisions of the citizens are entitled to be heard in the business councils. 

( 385 ) 





I 


386 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

Second, it will be admitted that one of the moving causes, if not the chief 
cause, that precipitated the American Revolution was the violation of the 
American doctrine that taxation and representation are inseparable. 

Third. That proportional representation is altogether neighborly and 
equitable no sane civilized Christian citizen can deny; for it is only giving to 
each his own. 

Now, if Congress, without even a constitutional amendment (for that 
body has the power to regulate the manner of electing its members), would 
pass the following law, which even a Democrat once introduced into that 
body, this great evil of unrepresentative government would be completely 
cured so far as our National Congress is concerned. The following draft of 
a bill introduced in Congress by Hon. Thos L. Johnson shows how propor¬ 
tional representation could be legalized: 

Section, i. That members of the house of representatives shall be voted 
for at large in their respective States. 

Sec. 2. That any body of electors in any State may, in convention or 
otherwise, nominate any number of candidates not to exceed the number of 
members to which such State is entitled in the house, and cause their names 
to be printed on its ballot. 

Sec. 3. That every voter shall be entitled to one vote each for as many 
persons as the State whereof he is a resident is entitled to seats in the house, 
and he may cumulate his vote on a less number of persons as he may choose. 

Sec. 4. That the sum of all the votes cast for all of the candidates in any 
State shall be divided by the number of seats to which such State is entitled, 
and the quotient to the nearest unit shall be the unit of representation. 

Sec. 5. That the sum of all the votes cast for all of the candidates of each 
body of electors nominating candidates shall be severally divided by the quota 
of representation, and the units of the quotients thus obtained will show the 
number of representatives to which each body of electors is entitled, and 
if the sum of such quotients be less than the number of seats to be filled, 
the body of electors having the largest remainder after division of the sum of 
all the votes cast for all of its candidates by the quota of representation 
as herein specified shall be entitled to first vacancy, and so on until all vacan¬ 
cies are filled. 

Sec. 6. That the candidates of each body of electors nominating candi¬ 
dates and found entitled to representation under these rules, shall receive cer¬ 
tificates of election in order of the vote received, the candidate receiving the 
highest number of votes the first certificate, and so on; and in case of a 
tie with but one vacancy to be held, the matter shall be determined by lot 
between the candidates so tied. 

To illustrate how this law would work let us take Texas, which has 13 
members of the house. Here in Texas the vote is about as follows: 


Democrats . 250,000 

Populists .150,000 

Republicans .100,000 

Prohibitionists. 50,000 


Total.550,000 









PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.. 


387 


The Democrats nominate 13 members and vote for each their 

250,000 votes equal.;...3,250,000 

The Populists nominate and cumulate their 150,000 votes on 3 candi¬ 
dates equal...1.950,000 

The Republicans cumulate on 2 candidates equal.1,300,000 

The Prohibitionists cumulate on 1 equal. 515,000 


Total of all votes 


7,115,000 


Now then, in order to ascertain the “unit of representation,” we divide 
the sum of all the votes cast, or 7,115,000, by 13,. the number of members to 
be elected, and we get 555,776. Now divide the total vote cast for each ticket 
by this unit and we get the number of members to which each party is 
entitled* as follows: 

Democratic vote of 3,250,000 divided by 555,776 equals 5 with remainder of 
471,120. 

Populist vote of 1,950,000 divided by 555.776 equals 3 with remainder of 
382,672. 

Republican vote of 1,300,000 divided by 555,776 equals 2 with remainder, of 
188,448. 

Prohibitionist vote of 515,000 divided by 555,776 equals o plus a remainder 
of 515,000. 

Add units and we have 10. 

But the State is entitled to 13 members. Hence three* members are to be 
had according to largest remainders; and on counting above figures the Pro¬ 
hibitionists, having largest remainder, would get one member, and the Demo¬ 
crats, having next largest remainder, would get one, and. the Populists, being 
next in order of large remainders, would get 1. Giving as follows: 


Democrats ... 

Populists . 

Republicans .. 
Prohibitionist^ 


6 members. 


4 

2 

1 


if 


if 


Total...13 

But under the party rule system Texas has twelve Democrats and one 
Republican representing the State in Congress. Any sensible man can see 
that the people of the State would be better represented under the propor¬ 
tional representative system as above illustrated. As it is, the Populist and 
Prohibition vote and over half of the Republican vote are suppressed and 
have no voice in Congress. Such a law could be passed without even a consti¬ 
tutional amendment, as by law Congress has the right to determine how its 
members shall be elected. 

If representation were based on natural divisions of society, such as agri¬ 
culturalists, manufacturers, day laborers, etc., instead of on political parties, 
the same results would be had, with the addition that a country of farmers 
would have farmers to represent it. 













388 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Representation based on the natural divisions of society could 
be effected by a law which 

First, required the assessor each year when assessing taxes to 
enroll every voter under the head of his calling, farmers under the 
head of farmers, and so of all the different callings and professions- 
of life. 

Second, allowing each class, however small, a representative in 
all law-making bodies, and the larger classes additional representa¬ 
tives according to their numbers. 

Third, providing that each class shall nominate and elect its 
own representatives,—no voter being allowed to vote for candidates 
out of his own class. 

Such a law would do away with our so-called representative 
bodies in which one class, that of lawyers, generally furnishes about 
all of the representatives, although their number, in proportion to 
the body of the people supposed to be represented, is about as one to 
ten thousand. 

John advocated with all of his heart, mind, and strength the 
principles of direct legislation in making laws and of proportional 
representation in'selecting all public officials so far as wisdom and 
judgment and justice would dictate; and he always held that such 
principles sprung from the highest dictates of wisdom, judgment,, 
and justice. But he well knew that for years and years these great 
measures of government, notwithstanding they are the effects of the 
second coming of the Son of Man, will be driven into the wilderness, 
by the great red dragon that ever stands before the “woman which 
is ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it be 
born/' 

John had seen this very same dragonistic proceeding back in 
the sixties, when the woman clothed with the bridal robes of the 
Prince of Peace was driven out to make room for the harlot that 
polluteth high public places. 

But he knew that finally the Son of Man would prevail and His 
kingdom of love to the neighbor would rule over all,—that such fair 
and square and neighborly principles as those of proportional rep¬ 
resentation would obtain in all civilized Christian governments, not¬ 
withstanding the spewing out of waters to drown it by the party- 
politicians. 


CHAPTER XL. 


A “BUSINESS MAN," A “MONEY LENDER," AND • A LAWYER- 
JUDGE" AS AIDS-DE-CAMP TO JOHN IN THE 
TEXAS WILDERNESS. 


What the Second Coming Will Do for a Business Man—History of 
a “Usurious Debt”—What the Second Coming Did for a Southern Pa¬ 
trician Lawyer and Judge. 


Somehow or other the Divine Providence will always help those 
who endeavor to help themselves. At times John seemed to be go¬ 
ing out into some country “solitary and alone” with only his wife 
accompanying him,—she and he, however, being somewhat “one.” 

So, in going to Texas, John met with some who were travel¬ 
ing the same road as himself, and a man of the earth to lend him 
a helping hand financially. Among these was a most remarkable 
^‘business man,” whose career is perhaps unexampled in the history 
of the commercial world at least in one respect. He had such con¬ 
siderate judgment and such firm and steady step that, during a mer¬ 
cantile experience of many, many years, he never cheated a customer 
out of a cent, and during all these years let his thousands of cus¬ 
tomers beat him out of only about six bits. Such a career in a 
country like Texas, where there are a good many "dead beats,” as 
well as necessarily a good many financial inopportunes, is sufficiently 
remarkable to be written, not only in this history, but to be carved on 
the temple walls of the merchant princes of the earth. 

On the principle of faithful in this thing, also faithful in that, 
this business man was always faithful in his considerate advice to 
John, who was not a Solomon Frank in the wisdom of this world. 
And not only was he a helpful friend with advice, but with his books 
and his contributions to any good cause suggested by himself or by 
John, with his open-house hospitality and his cheery humor, with 
his friendship in any time of stress, John found cheer in any time 
of crying and strengthening in any time of fainting. 





390 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


4 


Notwithstanding this remarkable business man was all over 
business, yet he had a sort of Abe Lincoln genius for pointing things 
with a “little story.” For instance, in order to illustrate the ridicu¬ 
lous phase of those who regard the Son as separate from the Father, 
he would tell such things as the following: 

“Down in Louisiana where I was brought up a gaudily dressed 
balloonist from New Orleans, in his great silken balloon, lighted 
in the midst of a large number of negroes who were picking cotton 
on a large plantation. The balloonist had long, flowing hair, a 
yellow coat, and a red cap. On the Sunday before the negro preacher 
had preached a red-hot sermon about the coming of Christ,—that 
it might take place at any time, and that He would come down from 
the clouds,—and gave such a usual cycloramic description of an ex¬ 
ternal person coming in an external way with a great external pa¬ 
rade, that the minds of the negroes were ripe for being imposed 
on by any “lo here” and “lo there” person or thing. 

“So they fled,, yelling and shrieking, but finally concluded to 
send one of their number to see the one they had taken for Jesus 
coming to burn up the world and to make the best terms possible. 
The old negro preacher was selected. He approached the balloon 
man and said: 

“‘Good day, Marse Jesus. How’s your Pa?’” 

It may be truly remarked that there are others besides the 
dusky children of the Southern cotton plantation plane of life who 
have quite as confused and materialistic an idea of the “Son” and of 
the “Second Coming” as did these Senegambian descendants of Ham. 

This kind of argument, it must be admitted, is only allowable 
on the idea that a “fool must be answered according to his folly.” 

Mr. Frank, like Judge Nugent, another friend, and John, was 
blessed with an old-time Southern-hearted wife, whose table was 
given to old-time Southern hospitality, and whose face, like the sun 
in the heavens, was always beaming in warmth of neighborly love 
and kindness. 

There was another business man (Dr. M. S. C). Although 
John never took any of his pills, because he was never sick, this 
sturdy man of business had something that John very often needed, 
yet'not very often had, that is, “cold cash.” In his dealings with 
this good man,—good, notwithstanding he was a publican and a 
Gentile,—John learned what perhaps is a necessary lesson to be 
learned by all,—that is, if you borrow anything, pay it back with 
interest. 


FRIENDS IN THE WILDERNESS. 


391 


With the expectation of getting some $2500 at a certain time, 
John had gone on credit for about $500 of improvements on his 
ranch. The expectation of getting the $2500 was based on the word 
of one of the most honest and reliable men that ever handled mil¬ 
lions of dollars without a cent’s loss to those for whom he handled 
it. The expectation of this Missouri business man (Gen. Geo. C. 
B., whose daughter figures in these pages) of getting the $2500 
was based upon the fact that he held the bonds of the second 
wealthiest county in all the wealthy State of Missouri for ten thou¬ 
sand dollars and accumulated interest, due January 1, 1874. This 
honest business man, thinking he was dealing with a set of honest 
county officials, had no doubt of getting his thousands of cash as 
per “written in the bond.” But a set of shyster attorneys seduced 
the said set of supposed honest county officials into a suit to contest 
their own bonds,—the only possible outcome of which suit was, 
first, a good fat fee for the shysters, and then, perhaps a compro¬ 
mise, with the result that the county might gain what somebody 
else lost. 

The suit lasted until the owner of the bonds left the earth for 
heaven, and, alas, until John’s $500 debt, based on the strength of 
what was involved in the, suit, had amounted, in one way and an¬ 
other, to several thousand dollars. 

Always trying to pay a debt when it was due, even if he had 
to borrow at such rates of interest as were then current in Texas, he 
borrowed the $500 of Dr. C. at five per cent per month. This ran 
on for some months when, John telling the doctor of the circum¬ 
stances of the case and that probably before the end of the year he 
would get the money, the doctor, on his own motion, reduced the in- 
teres to three per cent per month, payable quarterly. 

This ran on for several years, John paying out of his other 
revenues some of the interest. 

In a few years the doctor offered John the choice of two things, 
—he would either reduce the interest to ten per cent per annum, or 
he would take a piece of property John had for the debt. Now, the 
property that the doctor proposed to take, John knew, was not worth 
one-half the debt, which then amounted to some $2000, principal 
and interest. He knew that the good doctor’s offer was based on 
two things,—that after years of dealing with him, the doctor knew, 
as he often told John, that he was “square and honest,” and, on the 
belief, perhaps, that even though honest, he could never pay the 


392 


JOHN COUNSELLORS EVOLUTION. 


debt, coupled with the good old doctor’s well-known helping hand 
to all honest men who were trying to help themselves. These things 
had induced the doctor voluntarily to make the proposition that he 
did to John. 

But John said: 

“Doctor, you need not be afraid, I’ll pay you some way, some 
day. I’ll pay you every cent. I feel that I will do this; I know I 
will do it; for I have made it a. part of my religion to pay every 
honest debt. The property you propose to take is not worth one- 
half the debt. I’ll not scale or shave my own paper.” 

So. the kindly offer of canceling an honest obligation of debt 
at fifty cents on the dollar was kindly but firmly refused. But, at the 
urgent solicitations of the doctor, the interest was reduced from 
three per cent per month, which ran for several years. 

During all these years the doctor, knowing that John was “hard 
run,” but honest, never “dunned” him a single time on either prin¬ 
cipal or interest, though John would frequently say to him: 

“As sure as there is a God in heaven, doctor, some day, in some 
way, I’ll pay you every cent with interest.” 

Which promise the doctor seemed to take just the same as cash ; 
because he told John : 

* Whenever you are in a tight place, John, I’ve got the cash for 
you, with or without note, with or without security, with or without 
interest.” 

And John, with a large family and “land poor,” often got cash 
from the doctor in addition to the thousand or so that had been owing 
since the year 1874. 

Result, some few years ago the good old money-lender died, and 
John had paid him every cent that he owed him, and his executor, 
Lee Young, Esq., paid over to John several hundred dollars as the 
profits of a joint speculation between the good old doctor and John 
in which the doctor had furnished the talent and John the sweat 
of its using in some land matters. 

That there is some new life from heaven coming down to the 
earth is indicated in the transactions of the good old money-lender 
and John, shown by the money-lender trying to make John pay him 
less than he owed him, and on John’s part, that, swearing to his own 
hurt, he changed not through over twenty years of struggle, and paid 
every cent with interest; though at one time he could have settled 
everything satisfactorily to the lender at fifty cents on the dollar. 


FRIENDS IN THE WILDERNESS. 


393 


In this connection it may be said that John permitted, at his own in¬ 
stance, over one-half of those who got in his debt to settle at less 
than fifty cents on the dollar. Even more, when he saw debtors of his, 
honest but hard run, he gave one up his note for over $1000. From 
another who owed him some $1500, he took property out of which 
he got a horse and buggy with a mortgage on them . To several 
others he surrendered notes ranging from $100 to $500, and yet the 
ravens fed him and his. 

In relating this matter we mentioned the name of a lawyer, 
Lee Young. And, as we are only mentioning such things as indi¬ 
cate the second coming of soul life, or heaven, to the earth, we shall 
record the name of Lawyer Young as that of another attorney who, 
like Judge Moores, would never hunt up either Cain or Judas Is¬ 
cariot to fish for a fee. Nor, should Cain or Iscariot hunt him up, 
would he be retained to defend their open-handed crimes. And yet, 
strange, Lee Young and Judge Moores are also fed by the ravens, 
and even financially stand better in the world than do other attorneys 
who sell their souls “hash for cash.” And both of them are blessed 
with wives who would grace the salons and homes of the Golden Age 
of the world. It does seem that God takes care of Llis own! 

For here is John. Why, about one-half of his acquaintances 
thought that he ought to have a financial guardian on account of his 
easy seeming prodigality in giving, and neglecting to collect his own, 
and yet he reared and educated nine children, all of whom, except 
one, the youngest, are settled in life and doing well. And, while pay¬ 
ing all kinds of compound interest, and in the spirit of the year of 
jubilee giving away thousands of dollars to debtors, he is to-day in¬ 
dependent enough in finances to dedicate his life without money and 
without price to writing and proclaiming: “Watchman, what of 
the night? What of the coming morning?” pointing to Him of 
whom Hosea said, “His going forth is prepared as the morning, and 
He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto 
the earth.” 

We shall close these references to persons who were in some 
wise mixed up with John’s life in Texas with a notice of the chief 
stay that John had during these wilderness days, saving always 
John’s wife, who in all things was the chiefest among ten thousand 
and altogether lovely. The person to whom we allude was a lawyer 
by profession, and who for many years wore the judicial ermine of 
spotless purity, and was twice in campaigns the standard-bearer of 


394 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


the seemingly forlorn hopes of men whose hearts had felt the quick¬ 
ening pulsation of the coming of the Son of Man,—felt this pulsa¬ 
tion, as all who are born of the spirit from above, without knowing 
whence or what it was. This man was Judge Thomas L. Nugent. 

Nearly every Sabbath there was a “meeting” of this learned 
jurist and John with their families (the Judge’s wife was one of 
John’s converts on the old “Clarksville Circuit”), not in some eccle¬ 
siastical temple, but like the first day Christians, in their own home 
circles, sometimes at John’s and sometimes at the Judge’s home. If 
all the talks had on these occasions between these persons about the 
kingdom of the Son of Man should be recorded, it would take ten 
volumes much larger than this one to contain the same. So we will 
recite only a few incidents here and there. 

The learned Judge was a type of true Southern character. Born 
and bred in Louisiana, he inherited, as well as acquired from environ¬ 
ment, all the high-strung characteristics of the best days of the old- 
time Southland, such as an unimpeachable fairness and squareness in 
all of his personal dealings, and such as in personal appearance would 
stamp him as a patrician, not only in blood, but in all things of mind 
and soul, and especially such as made his home open-doored to all 
of his friends, he always meeting them at the gate with a hospitable 
handshake. 

He was of the same faith of religion, or rather, of the same faith 
of life as John was; and a living tree planted by living waters which, 
like wisdom, was justified by its fruits. He was about the only man 
ever heard of who would not sell anything, even if offered, at a 
greater price than he thought it was worth. He was one of the ex¬ 
ceedingly “few” out of the “many” who obtain extortionate judg¬ 
ments against railroad corporations, who voluntarily refused to take, 
for a cow that by cross with a locomotive had got to be of exceeding 
great value, more than the cow was really worth. He was one of 
the very few public men who had his own way in his own political 
party, yet left that party when it had ten to one majority, and identi¬ 
fied himself with the poor and lowly, who neither had votes to vote 
its standard-bearers into places of preferment, nor any particular 
standing except that they were seeking “something better” for them¬ 
selves and for their wives and children. 

Perhaps nothing could be more instructive to the general reader 
for the purposes of this book, than an article which appeared in a 
book entitled “Life of Judge Nugent,” which article was written bv 
John and is as follows: 


FRIENDS IN THE WILDERNESS. 


395 


Stephenville, Texas, Jan. 26, 1896. 

Mrs. Thos. L. Nugent, Fort Worth; Texas: 

My Dear Friend —Thinking that I, after an intimate acquaintance with 
your husband, Judge Nugent, extending over a period of nearly a quarter of 
a century, might say something about him interesting and profitable to the 
readers of the forthcoming book of his life, I will submit a few of the remin¬ 
iscences of him which throng my mind. Neither you, nor he, if alive, would 
appreciate any mere personal adulation or fulsome flattery; therefore I will 
select a few plain matters of actual occurrence to illustrate his life and 
character. 

Personally, I always found the Judge of such a simple, sincere, and child¬ 
like disposition that he often, in his words and actions, reminded me of a 
sketch I once read of a certain celestial character, only at home in the Golden 
Age of the world yet forbearingly contending with the rough and coarse 
realities of an age of mixed iron and clay. He verily lived in a world or 
age of which he was not. 

This I will illustrate by several incidents. This age seems to be one of 
such intense struggle and competition that it is, apparently, impossible for a 
man to live without making all he can, out of whom he can, provided he 
keeps himself in the usual course of trade and custom. It is well known that a 
common scrub cow by being killed by a railroad suddenly acquires a strain 
of blood and other valuable qualities which it usually takes other processes 
a hundred years of breeding in and breeding out to attain. When the Judge 
left Erath to go to El Paso, he left in his old home pasture some Jersey 
cattle. The Fort Worth & Rio Grande Railroad ran through the pasture 
and killed one of his best Jersey cows. In the Judge’s absence, the party with 
whom he had left his stock of cattle brought suit in the Judge’s name and 
got a verdict of $75 against the road. On hearing of the judgment, the Judge 
said that he did not think that the cow was worth more than $50 and volun¬ 
tarily had $25 of the judgment remitted, though there was no doubt that he 
could have held the $75. 

So, once upon a time he had a horse for sale for which he was offered a 
greater price than he thought the horse was worth, and let it go for a less 
price than he was offered. 

When hired hands worked for him and did good service he invariably paid 
them more than the contract price. But equally, on the other hand, he always 
felt unwilling to pay full price for negligent and inadequate service. He be¬ 
lieved firmly in value given for value received. Any violation of this law 
was painful to him. 

Nothing gave him more delight than to retire from the bench when he 
was judge and walk about his pastures, sit on a stump or on the green sward 
and look at his heifers and colts. Hundreds^of times I have been with him 
on such occasions and have seen him baptized with the spirit of God, who 
looked upon the work of His hands and pronounced it good. 



396 


JOHN COUNSELLORS EVOLUTION. 


Cultured in all classic lore, at ease along the planes of higher mathematics,, 
at home among the roots and idioms and finished phrases of ancient languages,, 
he yet took an intense delight in going down among the simpler and more 
child-like states and conditions of actual life. 

While on the bench, there began, here and there in the country places, 
a meeting together of farmers with their wives and children. These farmers 
-Cvould bring their dinners in boxes or baskets or buckets, and under some- 
arbor by the creek-side, or under some great oaks on the hillside, would 
consult and consider whether the conditions of themselves and their neigh¬ 
bors and their farms could not be bettered. The Judge, along with his wife,, 
took great delight in attending these meetings. It was a high and royal feast 
to mix with and speak to these simple folk, knowing that out of such material 
the Divine Providence would evolve wisdom of the highest type. There 
were two old men, Judge Hill and Uncle Josiah Crawford, who, on their 
visits to these meetings, would in passing stop and stay with the Judge. They 
were like brothers, open and simple as children, and always, as did others, 
found the Judge homelike with open doors. 

I was at the Dallas convention in 1892, when Major Rumph and Evan 
Jones told the great, crowded convention of a man who, amid the post oaks 
of the far west, met the Alliance in open counsel and comfort in the days of its 
struggling infancy. The body was composed mainly of men who had sat 
by the rivers of Babylon with their harps hung on willows beneath which 
they heard the weeping of their wives and children. The mere recital of a 
man of judicial stature coming among them as a disinterested counselor and 
friend sent a thrill of power into the bosoms of this great convention and 
resulted in the overthrow of an over two-thirds instructed majority. In its 
place rolled, with solid, unbroken acclamation, a unanimous nomination for 
governor. 

In the great canvass of 1892 all of the gubernatorial candidates, Hogg, 
Clark, and Nugent, on different days came to Stephenville. Both Governor 
Hogg and General Clark were received at the depot with brass bands and 
conducted to the best hotels in carriages. Nugent came, walked leisurely 
along, shook hands, as was his custom, even with many of his old colored 
neighbors, as friendly as if they were princes of royal blood. I know that 
this was not for any effect, but his simple, natural way. He could not help 
it any more than a child could help being glad to see home people on getting 
home. 

Speaking of the colored people, some months before the Judge died, 
and the last time he was ever in my office, he and a well dressed and seem¬ 
ingly well-to-do gentleman were in friendly conversation, which became some¬ 
what animated at a point in which there is generally a good deal of animus. 
Both were southern born, the. Judge coming of an old Louisiana family of 
slave-holders and having himself seen service in the Confederate army. The 
gentleman remarked that if the slave-holders had been paid for their slaves 
it would have been nothing but justice. The Judge replied that it appeared 


FRIENDS IN THE WILDERNESS. 


397 


to him that having had the services of the slaves for several generations for 
nothing, justice rather demanded that the slaves, rather than their owners, 
ought to have been paid at least enough to start them in life. 

The Judge was laden with the woes of his countrymen and borne down 
with the burdens of his people. He realized the momentous crisis the mul¬ 
titudes were in. History and prophecy struggled for leadership—history with 
its tale of terrible mistakes and disasters, of down-trodden multitudes, of 
eagles about the great, helpless carcass; then prophecy with its opening sunlit 
skies, its zones of fruit and flowers on either bank of rivers of the true life 
of men worthy to be called the children of God, arrested his attention. On 
his last visit here, a few weeks before his death, I was walking with him, as 
I had walked so many times, in his woodland pasture. One of these states of 
mingled history and prophecy came upon him. He stopped suddenly and 
said: “I feel like falling prone with face and bosom on the earth and pour¬ 
ing out my heart to God ior direction.” 

We were discussing whether peaceable evolution or fratricidal revolu¬ 
tion would be the procedure in the great transition now shaking the national 
heavens and earth. We both recognized the inevitableness of the transition. 
With, perhaps, more enthusiasm and a stronger leaning toward hopeful proph¬ 
ecies, I had held that it could and would be done through the ballot-box. 
The Judge’s whole nature leaned this way also, but, perhaps with a little 
more experience of men in their actual states, their selfishness, their am¬ 
bition and motives, he was often perplexed on this point. He finally said that 
he had a few days before received a letter from a friend of his at Austin 
in whom he had great confidence, that led him to believe, in accordance with 
what he greatly desired to believe, that the ruling and overruling Divine 
Providence would lead the people by peaceable means out .of their present 
industrial slavery and consequent political bondage. He then said that in 
order that this might be, “politics must be elevated to a higher moral plane, 
and the people will have to beware of mere politicians.” What he meant by 
“mere politicians” was not men engaged in political life, because he held that 
all men should take an active part in public affairs or politics proper, but 
men who, for selfish purposes, were merely intent on feasting and fattening 
on the public loaf and fish regardless of whether the public had weal or woe. 
Hence he despised parties formulating policies merely for campaign bun¬ 
combe with no intent of ultimate, lasting good to the commonwealth. 

The Judge’s personal attachments were very strong. Hon. C. K. Bell, 
now member of Congress, had been district attorney while Nugent was judge. 
They had traveled and slept and eaten together. Bell brave and brawny, 
Nugent frail of body. Turbulent characters were often before the courts, 
having very little regard for law,'justice, or judge. No bully, in Bell’s pres¬ 
ence, ever went unrebuked for attacks on the Judge’s good name in or out 
pf court. Bell always volunteered to do any surplus fighting necessary. They 
differed religiously,' differed politically, but with the instinct that mutually 
recognizes manhood, whether of their own fold or not, these two men were 
friends first and last. The Judge was importuned to run for Congress against 


398 


JOHN COUNSELLOR S EVOLUTION. 


Mr. Bell. He told me often that he would not run against Bell if he abso¬ 
lutely knew that he would be elected. In this, some regarded him as weak; 
but life is made more sacred by such acts of pure friendship. 

Sitting in my room, into which the dear Judge has so often come, so 
often unbosomed his heart in pleasant though philosophical conversation, a 
thousand memories rush upon me, and I only wish that your forthcoming 
book may carry to others some of the balm of life and refreshing of strength 
that I have derived from an association with him. 

Feeling that your book will show him as I have seen him in his walks 
and talks, personally, professionally, and politically, and knowing that no one 
can get up from reading it without both pleasure and profit, even as no one 
could enjoy his company without great benefit, I hope it will find its way 
into the homes of thousands and tens of thousands and dispense about their 
firesides that glow of friendly and neighborly humanity coupled with high, 
bounding, though child-like ways of wisdom which we here, in the old 
home room have so long and so many times and so beneficently enjoyed. 
Though he shall sit with us no more; though, when the columns move, he 
shall ride no longer at the front; though, when the battle is weary and wasting, 
we shall no longer hear his words of cheer; though, in deliberations of 
counsel, his calm, well considered opinion will no longer be offered; yet, 
incarnate him in the pages of your book and let its printed and enduring 
words be the sword of his great and gentle spirit, and he will be more widely 
present for good in thousands of hearts and homes than he could possibly 
have been if yet in the body. 

The Judge’s old and your 

Sincere Friend, 

John Counsellor. 


CHAPTER XLI. 


✓ 


SOME OF THE HELP-MEET’S IDEAS. 


John Had “Evenings” as Well as “Mornings” Spiritually—He Had 
Also a “Help-me«t”—Only the True Spirited Equal to Such Life—The 
Help-meet’s Idea of “Going Back”—Her Idea of “Temple Worship”— 
Her Idea of “Public Prayer”—The Two Trees of Eden Explained— 
Her Idea of the “Blind Leading the Blind”—The Difference Between 
a “Moral” and a “Christian” Man—What She Would Inscribe on John’s 
Monument—John’s Preference of Epitaph. 


We come now toward the sixth day of the whole matter. It 
must not be supposed that what is related in these closing chapters 
occurred after the taking place of the things recited in preceding 
chapters. By'no means. What is brought out in this chapter is the 
cause of the things related in all the other chapters; notwithstanding 
the cause of all the others as herein described was going on simul¬ 
taneously with John’s evolution out of the horrible degradation of 
the “attorney-at-law” profession and out of the dangerous and de¬ 
structive whirlpool of “partisan politics,” and out of an impotent and 
bloated and blind ecclesiasticism. 

We now go back, and will come up to the conclusion of the 
whole matter as it really occurred. 

For some years after John came to Texas he kept up his or¬ 
ganic connection with the religious body mentioned in Chapter 
XXXIV as a licensed minister; but when he re-entered professional 
life, under the mistaken idea that religious life is a life separate 
and apart from life in the uses of life such as the trades and pro¬ 
fessions, he abandoned any further work as a minister, but did not • 
abandon the yet unfinished task of working out his own salvation 
and in going forward toward the seventh day of his spiritual crea¬ 
tion. So, from this time on, we will follow his progress from the 
“evenings and mornings” of one day to the “evenings and morn¬ 
ings” of another. 

( 399 ) 





400 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

It milst be confessed that, while John was mixed up with the 
“midnight” state of the “fallen” ecclesiasticisms, there was a good 
deal of darkness upon the face of this and that “deep” of his mind, 
and a good many things of his spiritual life were “without form and 
void,”—though everything was in a good state of fluidity for easy 
formation. 

The light of the “first day” he had; but his light was somewhat 
like “the lightning that cometh out of the east and shineth unto the 
west,”—that is, somewhat evanescent, and after the fitful flash of 
lightning, often eclipsed by very dense darkness. For instance, 
while at times he saw clearly that there is but one God and that the 
Lord Jesus Christ is that God, and that “beside Him there is no 
God,” yet, when he saw the entire so-called “orthodox” clergy hav¬ 
ing two other “very Gods” besides Jesus, he would think that may 
be the elders of the ecclesiastical sanhedrims were right, and that 
he, as a born-blind boy, might be mistaken in the one thing he 
thought he positively knew, which was that “whereas I was born 
blind, now I see.” 

Again, the fearful question came up, Is it possible that the 
“orthodox” clergy have “fallen” into the same relation to true Chris¬ 
tian doctrine as had the scribes and chief elders and “counters of 
the towers” in the days of the first coming of the Son of Man ? Is it 
possible that, without knowing it, the whole church plane of life 
is again inundated and overflowed and “swept away” as in the days 
of Noe? Is it possible that, while the authorized and authoritative 
priests are in possession of the ecclesiastical temples and clothed 
with the phylacteried robes of wealth and the pontifical miters of 
accredited prestige and power, and are saying ecclesiastical prayers 
in all the synagogues and on all public street corners,—is it pos¬ 
sible that all of these priests are wrong again, and that the voice cry¬ 
ing in the wilderness is right? 

This was the gate up to which he struggled with drops of bloody 
sweat on his brow, and the gate through which it was hard for a 
camel that was in any wise cumbered with the merchandise of the 
old “fallen Babylon” to enter. 

John’s wife was a “help-meet” in all that the primal law as to 
man and wife—or rather, as to wife to husband—could possibly de-. 
mand. From the balmy June day in 1864 when she and John were 
married, up to the very Sabbath evening of a wonderful southern 
spring day in May, 1901, when she was gathered together with her 


SOME OF THE “HELP-MEET’s” IDEAS. 


401 


kindred, the angels, she was ever a help-meet to him. During such 
hardships as are hereinafter recounted her countenance never 
changed from its perennial sunshine, her voice never quavered from 
its soft musical tone, her steps never faltered and her heart never 
failed, until the day when it became meet that she go away from 
earth by having the heart fail without a spasm. 

The help-meet was not only born of but was baptized with the 
spirit that inspired Lucile when she lovingly said to her lover: 

“The woman who loves should indeed 
Be the friend of the man she loves. She should heed 
Not her selfish and often mistaken desires, 

But his interest whose fate her own interest inspires; 

And, rather than seek to allure, for her sake, 

His life down the turbulent, fanciful wake 

Of impossible destinies, use all her art 

That his place in the world find its place in her heart.” 

Under no stress of circumstance or strain of heart did any cur¬ 
rent of sentiment contrary to that of Lucile ever cross the life line 
in the palm of the good wife’s hand. 

Whilst a citizen of the earth she always seemed to be a little 
more akin to and have a citizenship in the world just up over the 
earth than she did to the world itself! 

As to John’s life in the wilderness, his friends who know of 
this story of evolution from Churchianity to Christianity—from “Old 
co New”—believe, and John also believes, that this wilderness life 
was but to prepare him to write such truthful story as this one, the 
intent of which, among other holy things, is to quicken the con¬ 
science of his own children against the following of Mars as citi¬ 
zens, and against the worship of Mars as ecclesiastics; and, on the 
other hand, to fan into furnace the smoking flax of the love to God 
and neighbor that are the two olive trees that stand before the Prince 
of Peace as “the God of all the earth.” 

At least, this story will, to some extent, accentuate the fact that 
the conflict between Mars and the Prince of Peace, and the conflict 
between mere ecclesiastical traditions and the Word of God, are as 
“irrepressible” as even the conflict was between slavery and freedom, 
—in which conflict slaves are giving way to freemen even as mere 
ecclesiastical churchmen of the letter will give way to Christians 
“born of the spirit.” 

Far over and far above John’s old newspaper friend in Missouri 
and in Texas, far beyond the remarkable business man, who was so 

14 


402 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


intimate in his life, and the old Southern patrician and judge,—above 
and beyond all these was his wife—his veritable “help-meet” in all 
the fullness of God's first declared law as to what the wife should 
be to the husband. His wife was “all in all” to him. An Elizabeth 
here, a Martha there, and always a Mary anointing his feet and bath¬ 
ing his head. Unlike John, she was “born in Zion,” and “counted 
and written in the Lamb’s Book of Life” as an Israelite in whom 
there never seemed to be any guile. This good wife was sent out 
into John’s life as the chiefest of the earthly angels that had “charge” 
of him “to hold him up in all of his ways and to keep him from dash¬ 
ing his foot against a stone.” 

For instance, for a thousand reasons that might be given and 
which will naturally occur to the mind of almost any thoughtful 
person, John was often tempted to “go down off of the housetop” 
and back into the old ecclesiastical home that he had left. Especially 
was this so at a time when a very talented friend of his who had 
walked with John along a good many miles of spiritual travel, 
through the influence of a Methodist wife, deserted John in the open 
field and went back into the old ecclesiastical house to take his old 
ecclesiastical “clothes” again. 

(The olfi clothes, however, never fitted him any more, and he 
got out again pretty badly ashamed of his nakedness. After that 
another wife, whose “eyes saw,” kept John’s talented friend out in 
the field where all things of spiritual life were growing unshriveled 
by the hot-house atmospheres where only pot-house foliage grows.) 

The tempter said, “For the sake of your children who need 
church stays of support, go back.” .But his wife would say: 

“This thing of playing the part of Lot’s wife—of going back¬ 
ward—is not the Bible idea of the way of traveling forward. Can’t 
we rear our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord 
instead of turning them over to what we know, after so many hard 
days of study and experience, to be merely the blind leading the blind 
—leading them into all kinds of horrible pits, such as war, “three 
gods,” “vicarious atonement,” and “the letter that kills” in relation 
to the second coming? Why, just think of it. ‘Why, papa, to think 
of putting our innocent children under the leadership of those who 
will, through mistaken zeal, lead them into such a pit. Why, I can’t 
think of such a thing.” 

Then again the tempter would say to John : “Here, John, you’ve 
got to live, and your wife and children are dependent on you; and no 


SOME OF THE "HELP-MEETV IDEAS. 


403 


man can live to himself. You and your family are pretty much alone, 
and every man’s hand will be against you, and how can you live?” 

To such as this the good wife would urge: 

"Why, papa, don’t you believe the Bible, which says in a thou¬ 
sand places and in a thousand varied phrases, ‘Trust in the Lord and 
do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily shalt thou be 
fed.’ Don’t the Scriptures mean something? If so, can’t you trust 
them when they say, ‘I have been young, but now I am old, but I 
have never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread.’ 
What about the Israelites being fed in the wilderness and th* 
prophet being fed by ravens? Are these things mere Fourth of July 
declamations, or are they truths that will no more fail or pass away 
than any other jot or tittle of His words? You don’t believe, for I 
have heard you preach that you didn’t,—you don’t believe that God 
is one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow. Then, if He fed 
people who did righteously in the past, He will feed the ‘righteous’ 
to-day. And it appears to me that it would be doing the right thing— 
which is righteousness—a good deal more by doing those things that 
our best judgment and conscience dictate that we should do, such as 
going out of Egypt towards Canaan. This looks a good deal more 
like setting our face towards Zion than if, for fear of lack of bread 
and meat, we should retrace our steps in the wilderness and go back 
into bondage and sit down by the pots of onions, leeks and garlic 
that made us sick in the old ecclesiastical Egypt. I did once think 
that perhaps Moses must have been mistaken when he wrote such 
minute accounts of the murmurings of the Israelites and their long¬ 
ing for the flesh-pots of Egypt, after God, at Mount Sinai and at 
Mara’s waters, and on the plains of Moab, and at the Red Sea, by day 
and by night led them forth by a strong hand and a stretched out arm 
that never failed,—after all of these things, I thought that Moses must 
have been mistaken in writing so much about the Israelites wanting 
to go back into Egypt, to say nothing of their refusing to go forward 
into a land not only of milk and honey, but of freedom from bondage 
and of liberty to increase in numbers as the stars in heaven. But— 
why, papa, please excuse me—but when I see you, who certainly 
have had a ‘taste’ at least of pretty much everything that Jews 
had in the wilderness,—yes, not only a taste of their grief, but' a taste 
of their deliverance, yea, more than a taste, a regular baptism from 
time to time of the powers of the world to come,—when I see you 
right here by my side, after all that you have seen and heard, talk- 


404 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


ing about going back to the old ecclesiastical Egypt to get something 
to eat, why I think that certainly Moses was right in writing such 
things as he did, for your especial benefit. Now, if you go back, then 
I want to die; because I don't want to part company with you. We’ve 
traveled together too long for this. Let us take our children by the 
hand, as Lot took his sons and his daughters and his daughters-in- 
law, and go the way upon which so far we have not starved.” 

With such words did the help-meet, like a guardian angel, min¬ 
ister to John in all seasons of temptation. 

Now, it must not be supposed that John was altogether a weak¬ 
ling; for, as a matter of fact, he had a little more than ordinary 
courage of his convictions, which he had not only inherited from his 
cavalier father and his old Virginia mother, but which had been 
strengthened in the daily combats of life. Still, no man is perfect. 

Sometimes John would be a little despondent, and would speak 
to his wife of what he called such “means of grace” as public prayer 
meetings. On one occasion he was somewhat more worried than 
usual about the public praying “exercises.” His good wife never 
failed in any time of stress to come to his comforting. 

Now, here is about the idea of this “help-meet” who came to 
the help of John at a time when he had some idea that he was neg¬ 
lecting a great means of grace in not attending the synagogue and 
offering up long and loud and at times boisterous, or “shouting 
happy” prayers: 

“Well, papa,” remarked the wife on this special occasion, “what 
did Jesus say about this public praying? Now, here is what He said: 
‘When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they 
love to pray standing in the synagogue and in the corners of the 
streets.’ I should think,” said the help-meet, “that you would not 
like to get into the hypocrite crowd bawling in public like a priest of 
Baal. You are too modest for that; and while none of us are ex¬ 
actly saints, yet you know that neither you nor I are hypocrites. Yet 
there they are exactly depicted; because it adds that they ‘pray in 
public.’ Now, why? Why, ‘to be heard of men.’ Just so. Because 
you know that nearly every public prayer is but a species of stump 
speech to the audience. I’ve heard you yourself say that.” 

“That is true,” replied John, “but perhaps one might pray in 
public without being ‘heard of men.’ ” 

“Well,” replied the help-meet, “if the men don’t hear, what is 
the use of praying in public where they are? It would be a waste of 
words, and Jesus knew that it would. Hence He did not say, ‘When 


SOME OF THE “hELP-MEEt’s” IDEAS. 


405 


you go into public to pray, don’t try to be heard of men, but to be 
heard of God.’ Oh, no. He knew there was no need of crying out 
in public in order to be heard of God, but that such prayer would oe 
necessarily heard of men. Hence He went on to say,—now just 
listen: ‘But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thv closetand even 
the closet was hardly private enough for such holy purposes, for He 
adds, being in the closet in some private place, one should make it a 
little more private,—‘Shut the door.’ And even this does not seem, 
in the estimation of Jesus, to be private enough; but for such a holy 
thing as communion with the God of all the earth in prayer, there 
must be a modesty that characterizes the holiest communion between 
the bride and bridegroom. Jesus says that, in addition to being ‘in 
a closet’ and with a ‘shut door,’ the One, the Father, to Whom 
we pray, ‘is in secret,’ and everybody knows that such, is the case; 
and He adds the remarkable statement that this Father seeth in 
secret.’ Vulgar parade in public is as far from the true character 
of Christian worship as modesty is removed from indecency in the 
use of holy things. Why, papa, take the Bible—this whole Word 
of God—and if you can find a single place where Jesus ever opened 
Flis services, or closed them either, with public prayer, then I will 
confess that I may mistake His teaching when, on this one great 
special occasion for teaching expressly about prayer, and its man¬ 
ner in efficacy, He so radically denounced public prayer and so ex¬ 
pressly enjoined prayer in the closet behind closed doors and with 
both you and God ‘in secret.’ He generally opened or closed ‘pub¬ 
lic services’ by handing around something to eat, which everybody 
sees is good for the hungry. And you know that in these public 
prayers the preachers will often rant and rave and importune God 
with ‘vain repetition,’ thinking that they shall be heard for their 
much speaking. Did you ever see anything so pointed against pub¬ 
lic prayer? 

“Away back in the time of the old prophets this public uttering 
of vain repetitions was shown up in its true light. Let us turn to the 
Bible and see how that was.” 

Here the help-meet, turning over leaf after leaf of the Bible, 
continued: 

“Oh, there it is in the eighteenth chapter of First Book of Kings. 
Speaking of the priests of Baal who ‘called on the name of Baal 
from morning even until noon’ (a kind of protracted prayer meet¬ 
ing), saying, ‘O, Baal, hear us,’ and the Book adds, ‘But there was 
no voice, nor any that answered.’ That is about the way of nearly 


406 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


all of these public prayers. In fact, nobody expects them to be an¬ 
swered. But just listen. Now you see that it is not I,” said the help¬ 
meet, “that is doing this preaching. Just listen to what the old 
prophet Elijah said to these public bawlers, ‘And it came to pass at 
noon that Elijah mocked them and said: Cry aloud, for he is a god; 
either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or per- 
adventure he sleepeth and must be awaked.’ 

“Now, you know, papa,” said the help-meet, “that this scripture 
was written for something, and taken in connection with what Jesus 
himself said about public prayer, you must confess that prayer as a 
means of grace must be in secret to a God ‘who is in secret.’ Yes, 
you know that that is the way that Jesus prayed Himself. See in 
the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew, the last ‘services’ He ever had 
on earth with Elis disciples. He didn’t either open up or close that 
service with public prayer. He made a talk. Then sang a hymn, 
—such things as are appropriate in public. But He did not have any 
prayer in the presence of any of His disciples; because it is written 
that He took three of them ‘apart’ and then He left these and went 
off by Himself to pray.” 

“Well, darling,” said John, “I am of the same opinion as your¬ 
self, that this public ‘worship’ of God as now carried on has got to 
be about as great a farce as the performances of the priests of Baal. 
From five years’ experience as a Methodist minister, I know that 
nearly all the public prayers are but, as you say, stump speeches to 
the audience, or intended to ‘wake God up,’ as the old prophet said.” 

“Well, papa,” said the wife, “it is true that there is some good in 
some way in people meting together. What is vour idea about 
that?” 

“The only infallible way of ascertaining what Christians should 
*do as followers of Jesus Christ,” said John, “is simply to try to do as 
He did. I think this for two reasons : First, the meaning of‘follow¬ 
ing after’ a person is to do as he did ; and, second, this is exactly what 
was meant by the ‘tree of life’ and the ‘tree of the knowledge of good 
and evil’ placed in every man’s garden of Eden. The ‘tree of life’ 
is the Lord Himself, who alone is good. But if they do what the Lord 
says, then, He being altogether good, and because out of like springs 
like, we are certain to do good if we do as He did. And as to what 
He did we are not left in any doubt so far as public services are con¬ 
cerned. The whole four Gospels are minute records of what He did 
and said. Now then, in all of these Gospels, we find as follows: 


SOME OF THE “HELP-MEET’s” IDEAS. 


407 


“First, that He would go sometimes into the synagogue, not to 
pray, but to read and explain the Scriptures. Now this is one use of 
public service that He observed and of which we will see the use. 

“Second, at the last ‘service’ He ever had with His followers 
He had no prayer either at opening or closing. He opened with a 
general talk of warning of evil and other matters appertaining to 
Himself, and proceeded by handing around certain things to eat and 
drink, and closed by singing a hymn. All of which are appropriate 
for any public religious assembly. 

‘‘Then, again, every public cause has need of counsel and of de¬ 
vising ways and means for its promotion. So of the merely earthly 
cause of the kingdom of Christ. It needs books, literature, evangel¬ 
ists, places of meeting, and other like things. The common advo¬ 
cates of this cause should meet for the above purposes. Any way¬ 
faring men can see the necessity for and good of such public meet¬ 
ings. 

“But to go ‘backwards’ and try to have so much ‘temple worship* 
is to go back and be of the Jews, who were such an exceedingly gross 
and carnally-minded people that they were nearly like idolaters, com¬ 
pelled to have some ‘visible’ stock or stone to remind them of some 
‘invisible God.’ But Christians should not be that way. This was 
clearly taught by Christ at the well of Samaria. The woman, as 
usual with ‘carnally-minded’ people, thought that people had to go 
somewhere—either to the temple at Jerusalem or to the altars of 
Samaria—to worship God. Jesus rebuked this idea, and said that 
God was a Spirit and sought worshipers to worship Him in spirit and 
in truth. .Stephen was stoned to death by the Jews for repudiating 
the worship of God in ‘temples made with man’s hand.’ 

“Paul denounced this worship of God in ‘temples made with 
man’s hands’ in his great address on Mars’ Hill. 

“The first Christians never had any public places of worship. 
It was only when the Church got gross, worldly, and devilish (habita¬ 
tion of devils, as John said in Revelation) that the lust of the flesh 
and the pride of a worldly eye caused them to ‘go backwards’ and 
erect fine and flashy ‘temples of worship,’ thus repudiating all that 
Christ had taught. 

“The most remarkable statement showing the utter repu¬ 
diation of ‘temple worship’ is to be found in a minute description of 
the coming New Church of the Son of Man at His second coming, 
as written in Chapter XXI of the Book of Revelation, wherein it is 
said, ‘And l saw no temple therein! Why? ‘For the Lord God Al¬ 
mighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.’ This was the temple 


408 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


spoken of by Habakkuk, ‘The Lord is in His holy temple.’ This is a 
prophecy of the incarnation of the Lord in the ‘tempie of His body’ 
and not in an earthly building; because Habakkuk had just said, ‘Woe 
to him that said to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it 
shall teach.’ 

“There is absolutely no one thing that will with greater force 
and virulence make a regular carnal-hearted ecclesiastic than mere 
‘temple worship.’ ” 

“What, then, papa,” said the good wife, “do you in plain terms 
say to people about what a religious life is ?” 

“Why, I tell them,” said John, “to eschew evil and learn to do 
good,— r to love God and their neighbor,’—and to illustrate I say to 
Sinner Jones about as follows: Jones, if you wish to go to heaven 
just start from the very place (or state of mind and heart) that just 
now you are in. If you have only a suspicion that there may be a 
God and a hereafter, why, that is the mustard seed, the smoking flax, 
the seed com of the kingdom of heaven within you. Don’t try to do 
any big thing. Don’t go about to look up a job to do. Do the very 
thing just next ‘at hand,’ because the kingdom of heaven and every¬ 
thing about it is always just ‘at hand.’ Don’t run abroad at once to 
the temple altar with your gifts of worship; because, if you do, you 
will have to come and straighten up things with those near at hand 
before your gifts are accepted. You know that Jesus taught this 
doctrine in that same great sermon on the mount in which he said: 
‘If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remembereth thy brother 
hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar and go 
thy way: first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer 
thy gift.’ 

“Every big thing is made up of little ones. One thing at a time 
was taught by the parable of the Pool of Bethesda, where only ‘one’ 
could be healed at each visit of the angel.” 

"Is that all, papa ?” asked the wife. 

“Why, certainly. Isn’t that enough?” said John. “Can any 
one do any more than what is ‘at hand ?’ I am sure that he can’t step 
the fourth step before he steps the third. The doctrine of the ‘at 
hand’ opportunity is the same doctrine as the ‘neighbor’ love,—both 
meaning the person, place, or thing that you are ‘right up against,’ 
because you have to be right up against a thing to handle it with 
any effect. Don’t be afraid that you will fail to be ‘up against’ a 
sufficient number of things to give you plenty of exercise for your 
health and strength. I would risk my chances for being a man ap¬ 
proved of God, if the following thing didn’t prove to be approved of 


SOME OF THE “HELP-MEET’S” IDEAS. 


409 


both God and man,—that is, a man who does every little kindness, 
who does every deed of usefulness, speaks every little kind word, 
looks every little pleasant look, pays every little debt, eschews 
every little bit of devilment that comes along, in fact, eschews 
every little evil and learns to do every little good that present them¬ 
selves daily,—that man will be approved of God and man more than 
the Pharisees who say long public prayers in public places! Did not 
Christ preach this doctrine in that same sermon on the mount when 
He said that He would not know those that prophesied in His name, 
and in His name cast out devils, and in His name had done ‘many 
wonderful works ;’ but that he would recognize and approve the small 
worker who had handed out a cup of water or a bit of something to 
eat to the thirsty and hungry?” 

‘‘But,” queried the good wife, “would not the doing of all that 
you say make merely what is called a ‘moral man?’. What is the 
difference between a mere ‘moral man’ and the ‘new man in Christ 
Jesus ?’ ” 

“In outward appearance,” said John, “there is no apparent differ¬ 
ence between a moral man and a man ‘born or led of the Spirit.’ A 
Christian is a moral man, yet a mere moral man may not be a Chris¬ 
tian. I will illustrate. As a politician, and with the primary intent 
of getting votes, I may give a poor family a sack of flour and let my 
left hand know what my right is doing. Then again, I might give a 
poor family a sack of flour simply because I did not deem it right to 
allow any one to suffer hunger if I could'possibly prevent it. Now, in 
both instances the act is the same, and in both I would be a moral 
man. But the giving as a politician, that I might be seen of men and 
obtain votes, would not be a Christian act born of a Christian spirit; 
while the giving because it is right to relieve those who are hungry, 
expecting no other reward than to be ‘blessed in the deed’ and not 
for it, is born of the Spirit of God within me and would be the act of 
a Christian. 

“A life of eschewing evil and learning to do good, with the mo¬ 
tive to be seen of men and rewarded by men, is radically different 
from the life of eschewing evil and learning to do good from the 
motive that such a life is right,—that it is done for Christ’s sake, 
that is, that God wills that we should lead such a life, and that we 
have such faith in ‘God-in-Christ’ that we learn this kind of life, not 
because we hope for any reward or because we feel like it, but be¬ 
cause it is right,—because Cod commands such a life, and with the 
determination that we shall follow such a life even if we have to ‘take 
up our cross’ to do so. 


410 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“The radical difference between a ‘mere moral’ man and a Chris¬ 
tian is that the merely moral man does things for his own sake, whilst 
the Christian does the same things for ‘Christ’s sake.’ Just as illus¬ 
trated in the giving of*the sack of flour. You see that there is a gulf 
between the two that is as impassable as that between doing an act 
with a bad, selfish motive and doing the same act with a good, neigh¬ 
borly love motive. A mother who, with loving solicitude for the 
child, gives it medicine to save its life, is a different character from 
the mother who, tired of caring for her child, gives it medicine to de¬ 
stroy its life. In both cases the mother gives medicine to her child. 
The act is the same, but the motive gives character to the act. The 
one is born of the corrupt flesh, the other of the saving Spirit. The 
one eats of the tree of ‘good and evil,’ or self, while the other par¬ 
takes of the ‘tree of life,’ and is from the Lord of Life! The one 
does things in public to be seen and heard of men; the other does 
the very same things in the closet to be seen of God, or because God 
says to do them. And in this there is as great a difference as be¬ 
tween our variable and ever changeable ‘feelings’ and the Word of 
God that is invariable, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever!” 

“Yes, I see,” replied the wife, “that the motive gives character 
to the act. Hence there is such stress placed in the Scriptures on 
being ‘born of the Spirit,’ ‘born of God,’ ‘born from above;’ because 
the spirit is ‘above’ the flesh even as God is ‘above’ the man. For 
the first time in my life I see what is meant by that singular text 
in Genesis about the ‘tree of life’ and the ‘tree of the knowledge of 
good and evil.’ The Lord’s will is the ‘tree of life,’ for He says, ‘I 
am the Life,’ while man, having both good and evil in him, is the 
‘tree of knowledge of good and evil.’ A man who does a thing for 
his own sake is very different from the same man when he does the 
same thing for ‘Christ’s sake,’ or because Christ commands it. The 
one acts from and is led of the flesh; whilst the other acts from and 
is ‘led of the Spirit.’ I see now that a moral man becomes a Chris¬ 
tian not by changing acts, but by change of spirit or motive, and 
thus being born of the Spirit. 

“I think that we agree,” continued she, “that the only thing for 
which people ought to assemble themselves together in public is, not 
to pray to God or even to worship Him, which can be done ‘in secret,’ 
but to help each other by exhortation, rebuke, teaching, and the like. 
We both know that we already know more than we do, and it is 
dangerous to know what should be done and not to do it. It is a 
regular house on the sand! Now, I never go to church for two rea- 


SOME OF THE "hELP-MEEt’s” IDEAS. 


411 


sons, first, that I know already more than I can do, and yet I am 
trying to do so much for this and that one; and second, the poor 
preachers are the blind leading the blind. You know that you said 
that you had tried over seventy times seven of them by asking your 
three scriptural questions, and that, at the third question every single 
one of them showed that he did not even know who the Lord Jesus 
Christ was,—every one of them denying that He was ‘the everlast¬ 
ing Father’ and the ‘only wise God.’ Now, if they don’t know who 
the head of the church is, then they don’t know anything else except 
by guess work. In fact, they all preach ‘mystery’ instead of ‘revela¬ 
tion’ about every single one of such subjects as the ‘resurrection,’ 
‘the final restitution of all things,’ ‘the Trinity,’ ‘the ministration of 
angels,’ ‘the place of judgment by angels.’ Ignoring these high 
and beautiful revealed truths, they are, as Paul said, ‘proud, knowing- 
nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof 
cometh envy, strife, railing, evil surmises, perverse disputings,’ and 
other things that make me sick at heart. I don’t go to hear the 
preachers, just for the reason that I wouldn’t go to school to a 
teacher that did not know what to teach or how to teach. Do you 
suppose that Jesus ever rejected any publican or sinner just because 
such publican or sinner failed to sit under the ‘eaves-dripping’ of 
the commandments as preached by the high-priests up at Jerusalem? 
Why, He always denounced the priests more than He did the publi¬ 
cans, or harlots, or sinners,—and with more reason. If this was the 
case in the time of the first coming, didn’t Jesus and John both say 
that the same would be the case in the time of the second coming, 
which we both believe is now going on? And even if Jesus did not 
say it, can’t everybody see it? Why, the preachers, during the war, 
were the bloodiest minded people possible! They are cumbering the 
true Christian ground. Out of 1,500,000,000 people, only 338,000,000 
are in nominally Christian countries! Why, the Buddhists have 
2,000,000 more disciples than these ‘so-called’ Christians, having 
340,000,000. Of the 338,000,000 Christians, 201,000,000 are nomin¬ 
ally Roman Catholics, while 81,000,000 are of the Greek Church, 
leaving only 106,000,000 so-called ‘orthodox’ Christians. And of 
these about eighty out of every hundred never go to church, never go 
to the ‘temple of worship,’ and out of those who do go about one- 
half or more go to see and be seen, and not devoutly to worship. 

“Take our little town for example. It is quite as Christian a town 
as any we know of. There are 2000 people here. Of these about 
200 attend ‘temple worship,’ or about ten per cent. Of this 200 


412 


JQHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


about ten per cent go for real worship. • So the so-called ‘evangeliza¬ 
tion’ of "the orthodox churches works out as a result as follows : 1/5 
of 1/10 of 1/10=1/500 of the whole, and most of these are babies 
and women! 

“What about the ninety-nine in the fold and one out ? It seems 
where one is in five hundred are out. What a failure—in view of 
‘orthodoxy.’ Perhaps it would be better if only one of every ten 
thousand were in such a fold; because a mere ecclesiastic is a ‘twofold 
child of hell,’ and even publicans and harlots will go into the 
kingdom of God before such chief priests and elders. 

“Now, are not such laborers in the vineyard mere cumberers of 
the ground, as the Jews were? I think it is time for those of us 
who know who the Lord is—that He is the Almighty God and the 
Everlasting Father and Saviour and Redeemer—to quit encouraging 
either the Jews or the apostate ‘orthodox’ clergy. Only the angels 
themselves will be able to make them see the awful ‘midnight dark¬ 
ness’ as to true Christian doctrine that they are in at this the second 
coming of the Son of Man! Why, papa, there is not a single orthodox 
preacher that I have ever met, but who, in speaking of the second 
coming, will speak of it as the ‘second coming of Christ.’ They don’t 
know the difference between the second coming of Christ and the 
‘coming of the Son of Man,’ as the prophets and Jesus and John 
always spoke of this ‘coming.’ In fact, I have never met a single 
orthodox preacher that knew anything at all about that, just at 
present, greatest revelation of all the Book,—the Apocalypse. They 
don’t know that they are ‘being swept away’ like the people in the 
days of Noe, ‘without even knowing it.’ They don’t any more 
suspect that they are in the position that the Jews were in in the 
days of the first coming, than the Jews suspected that they were 
rejecting the real Messiah, not a bit! Isn’t it awful ? I hate even to 
think of such things, let alone go to church and be more than con¬ 
vinced by the preaching that I hear that such is the fact! You 
know that you and Judge Nugent often speak of how painful it is to 
teach and to be taught the Scriptures. Didn’t Jesus say ‘wherever 
two ot three were gathered (synagogued or churched) together in 
His name’ He was in the midst? We’ve got as good a Christian 
church in our family as can be; because here we all ‘love each other,’ 
without which no church is a Christian church,—but with which any 
‘two or three gathered together’ is a true Christian church. Every 
day and on every occasion, I pray to God in secret! Often at mid¬ 
night when you and the children are asleep, I pray to God for you 
all! When you are out in the world of business, worried, wearied, 


SOME OF THE “HELP-MEET’s” IDEAS. 


413 


and faint, I continually pray, ‘O God, my Heavenly Father, bless 
my husband. Hold him up. Keep him in the straight path of right¬ 
eousness/ In fact, I pray ‘in secret’ for anything that I feel needs 
God’s help. What more can I do? 

“As to you, papa,” continued the wife, “you are fighting a good 
fight. I know this, because a tree is known by its fruit. In the 
days when we were ‘sweethearts,’ in the moons when we were bride 
and bridegroom, in the awful struggling days when we were getting 
out of the ecclesiastical pit, in all those days I thought that you 
could not love me more, or treat me with more tender and greater 
loving kindness; but as you go forward, I know that you love me 
more and more and treat me more and more lovingly. I may die 
before you. I feel that I will. But if you should die first, I’ll recol¬ 
lect your struggles and teach our children to follow your steps. 
Though you may have been ‘rejected of men’ and ‘deemed as one 
stricken of God,’ as all reformers are deemed by those ‘at ease in 
Zion,’ I will erect a monument to your memory, and on it will be 
inscribed such sentiments as . 

“The world has had reformers, men who were sternly just, 

Who smote the thrones of wickedness and laid them in the dust; 

Meek, tender men, made mighty by mankind’s blood and tears; 

Strong men, whose words were thunderbolts to smite the wrong of years. 

“Were all these stern reformers of a breed too weak to last? 

Did all the great wrong-smiters wane and perish in the past? 

Did they fight a losing battle? Were they conquered in the fray? 

Why are there no reformers fighting in the world to-day? 

“Well, ’tis but a thing of labels; the reformers have nor gone, 

But they’re mixing with the people with misleading placards on; 

For we placard them ‘fanatics/ ‘visionaries/ ‘cranks/ and ‘fools/ 

Men denounced by clubs and churches, by the journals and the schools. 

“There are men who bear these placards daily in the market place, 

Heroes of the ancient lineage, kings and saviors of the race. 

And we never see their greatness through life’s trivial events, 

But our children’s sons will read it on their granite monuments.” 

“I think,” said John, looking sad, and with his usual poorness of 
spirit that was abashed at any idea of exaltation pver others,—‘T 
think that, in view of the immense stretch of things, ever to ‘go for¬ 
ward’ to between the ‘first’ and ‘second’ days of the regenerate life, to 
say nothing of the high altitudes of the days up among the ‘fourth,’ 
‘fifth,’ and ‘sixth’ states of regeneration, I would prefer an epitaph 
like this: ‘ Standing afar off and smiting on his bosom, that he had 

not gone farther forward!’ ” 


CHAPTER XLII. 


A RELIGIOUS SERVICE OF JOHN AND HIS WIFE. 


An Inventory of “Profits and No Losses”—Luther, Wesley, and 
Alexander Campbell Engaged in the Mere “Marrying and Giving in 
Marriage” Activity Which Precedes the “Second Coming”—Procreations 
of a Heavenly Marriage—The Cup That Made “All the Kings of the 
Earth Drunk”—The “Woman Clothed With the Sun”—The Last Re¬ 
ligious Service of John and His Wife. 


As seen in Chapter XXIII, when John and his wife “came out 
of” the Methodist ecclesiasticism, they took an inventory,—not of 
stock or assets on hand, because of such there was precious little to 
take,—but an inventory of what might be called “betterments” arising 
from that “come-out-of-her-my-people” transaction. 

But the coming out of one branch of one ecclesiasticism and 
going into another branch of the same, is a mere “marrying and 
giving in marriage” business as compared with the earthquakes on 
earth and'the failing and falling from heaven of the sun, moon, and 
stars, which necessarily attend the “coming out” from a fallen 
Babylon where “all old things” are left behind forever, and going 
“forward” into one of the twelve gateways of a coming city in which 
in totality things are new. 

The “marrying and giving in marriage” transactions which 
precede the second coming of the Son of Man, and which necessitate 
such coming, consist in such things as changing from one ecclesias¬ 
ticism to another ecclesiasticism, or rather the mere'change in some 
non-essentials of the same Babylon, which differs so little that the 
family ties are kept up like the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law 
relation, in which there is a kind of Babylonian affinity and con¬ 
sanguinity, so that it is difficult to distinguish brick from mortar. 
This was the kind of relation that existed between the Reformation 
under Martin Luther and the “great whore that sat on many waters” 
under the Pontiff of Rome. Martin Luther never did give up the 
essential errors of the Romish Church, any more than Jones gives 

(414) 




AN UNCONVENTIONAL RELIGIOUS SERVICE. 


415 


up Smith s family by getting a divorce from one, yet still remaining 
married to a half-dozen others of Smith’s daughters. Luther married 
or was “given in marriage” to the old Romish doctrine of “three per¬ 
sons in the Godhead, ’ which marriage had as its legitimate fruit 
such ill-favored sons and daughters as the “vicarious atonement,” “the 
resurrection of the fleshly body,” “an ecclesiasticism ruled over by 
some pope, bishop, or elder, who exercises dominion over all,”—“a 
church without instead of a kingdom within,” a “literal and spec¬ 
tacular coming to burn up the old material earth, instead of a spiritual 
coming to sa»ve and not destroy men’s lives, to close the books and 
damn men, instead of to open the books and deliver men from the 
bondage of Babylon.” In fact, the only real service that Luther did 
was to weaken the fetich worship of saints and dead men’s bones, and 
to take the Bible out of the hands of the priest and put it into the 
hands of the people. This great service put the people in position 
to read the Bible for themselves, and thus reading, they might be 
led to repudiate even what both the pope and Luther taught for 
Christian doctrine. John Wesley was engaged in the mother-in-law 
and daughter-in-law business, only that he never left his mother-in- 
law’s house, though many of his followers did. But many of those 
who were on “the house top” where Wesley’s reformation placed 
them, are returning down into the house and clothing themselves 
with their old ecclesiastical garments, such as having bishops instead 
of popes, and having “temples made with men’s hands,” or places 
that are “holier” than even the things made by God Himself, or at 
least “holier” than other things made by the same men’s hands. 

In all essentials of church doctrine the Methodists are not in the 
least removed from the old Dark Age Romish doctrine of “three 
persons,” “vicarious atonement,” and other horrible perversions of 
the doctrine of the one God in Christ Jesus, and a materialistic 
coming.” 

The Sage of Bethany was merely a come-outer of one ecclesiastical 
pit .only that he might fall into another, in which his more than 
ordinarily intelligent followers are beginning the same transaction of 
dividing up into different households by the marrying and giving in 
marriage business among themselves. There are now two distinct 
“churches” among these loud declaimers for “One Lord, one faith, 
one baptism,” and one church! 

But the “going out” or the “coming out” business in which John 
and his wife were just now engaged, was not changing from one 
phase of a thing to another phase of the same old thing, such as they 


416 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


were guilty of in going out of one branch of Methodism into another 
branch; and such as Luther and Wesley and Alexander Campbell 
were guilty of,—which change did not prevent them from being 
“drunken” on the original cup of Babylon’s fornication of the truths 
of God, as stated in Chapter XIV, Verse 8, of the Book of Revela¬ 
tion, in which it is declared that Babylon made all nations (churches ) 
“drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication,”—a sentiment 
that is of such sad consequence that the Revelator redeclares, “Come 
hither. I will show unto you the judgment of the great whore 
that sitteth upon many waters; with whom the kings of the earth 
(church creed-makers) have committed fornication, and the inhab¬ 
itants of the earth (church members generally) have been made 
drunk with the wine (error) of her fornication.” 

And to show what kind of “habitation” this fallen church was 
and is the Revelator declares: “Babylon is become the habitation 
of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every un¬ 
clean and hateful bird.” 

The whole fallen church, Rome and her Protestant daughters 
of “orthodoxy,” is Babylon. For they are all marrying and giving 
in marriage together, and all eating and drinking and “drunk” to¬ 
gether. 

John and his wife had quit the fruitless t^sk of trying to put 
new wine into old bottles; or to patch a new patch on an old worn- 
out garment; or of putting a new earth and new heaven into an old 
earth and old heaven that were being rolled up as a scroll. So, every 
once in a while, they would “assemble” themselves together for what 
they called “religious services,” not religious services because they 
were merely called such; but because, being about religious matters, 
they were religious services—just as sunshine is sunshine whether 
you call it by that name or not. It is true that these services were 
not like those of the Pharisee, “on street corners or in synagogues,” 
or in other public holier-than-other-places; but nevertheless were 
in places equally as holy as public places,—places that were free of 
the distracting publicity of public places, and where there was no 
temptation to see and be seen of men,—which place was the sacred 
closet where the home altar was. 

Often John and his wife had this kind of religious service, and 
did what the apostle indicated was appropriate on such occasions 
—“exhorted each other” and “learned” of each other. Because 
often the wife knew one thing and the husband another, so that they 


AN UNCONVENTIONAL RELIGIOUS SERVICE. 


417 


could be mutual “help-meets” in dividing with each other their gifts 
of good-things which on “the lees” of their respective experiences 
were “well refined.” 

We come now to the last distinctly religious service that John 
and his wife ever had together on earth,—though neither knew at 
the time that it would be the last. 

It is now about thirty years since the old ecclesiastical earth 
had been swallowed up beneath their feet with a great earthquake, 
and the old ecclesiastical heavens had rolled up like a scroll, and, 
with its old ideas, its old hopes, and its old loves, had passed awav 
out of their life. And, in the place of the hopes and loves and 
v\orks of the old, now for some thirty odd years thb hopes and 
loves and fruits of the new earth and heavens had been coming! 

So in the first blush of the spring of the year 1901, when the 
song of the coming spring was beginning to be heard from the 
birds about the trees in the yard of their far-away Southern home, 
John and his wife had their last assembling together for special re¬ 
ligious services. 

They met to exhort each other as to the “Profit and Loss” in 
the transaction in which, having found a “new” kingdom of heaven 
hidden as a treasure in a field for joy thereof they had gone and 
sold all that they had and bought that self-same field. 

This assembling for religious services proceeds: 

“Well, mamma,” said John, “when we left one ecclesiasticism for 
another on the same plane of ecclesiastical life, we took a list of bet¬ 
terments. Now that we have made even a greater change,—a change 
from ‘all old’ to ‘all new’ things,—perhaps it might be wise to make 
a reckoning and see what we have lost and what we have gained. 
So we’ll take it time about, in each having his say; because you 
know that I am much opposed to the ‘preacher’ having all of ‘the 
say’ and the people all of ‘the hear.’ You know that some of the 
preachers will have any of their dumb hearers arrested for disturb¬ 
ing public worship who attempt to ask for a reason of what the 
preacher ‘says.’ Now, this in which we are engaged is religious 
service, or a talk about religion, and I won’t have you arrested for 
participating in it. And for politeness’ sake I will give you the 
first ‘say’ on the subject of losses and gains in our great change.” 

“Well, yes,” said the wife, “so far as I can call to mind I think 
that every religious service that Jesus Himself ever had consisted 
in asking and answering and explaining questions of Scripture; or 
at least, anybody in the congregation was permitted to ask ques- 


418 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


tions when they didn’t understand, or when they had anything to 
the point to say. So I will head the catalogue of betterments by 
saying that I think it much better that we are in a plane of life in 
which there is freedom on the part of the people to inquire of the 
pulpit. I have heard you say that about the only good that came 
out of Luther’s Reformation was that the people were set free to 
dissent from what the priest said of the Bible, by reading the Bible 
for themselves. So among the people with whom we now find our¬ 
selves the pew is as free as the pulpit,—the people as free as the 
priest. This freedom is absolutely necessary, because, as we now 
see, everybody must give an account of himself, and people are 
not carried *to heaven in bulk, like passengers on a steamboat; but 
each must travel on his own feet. Hence I account this freedom 
as one of the best things that we’ve found in coming out of the old 
ecclesiastical earth and settling a pre-emption claim on the new one. 
Now, let’s see if you have anything better than the one I have just 
suggested.” 

“What you have suggested,” said John, “is exceedingly better 
than the old bondage of the pew to the pulpit, of the people to the 
priest. There can be no progress without freedom. On this plane 
lies all of the work of the King of kings in His office of Redeemer, 
or setting the people free from the rulership and dominion of devils 
and all obsessing spirits, and ecclesiastical kings, rabbis, and mas¬ 
ters. In the coming church the only authority that a priest will 
have over the people is what every man has over another who has 
more and a higher order' of truth than does the other.” 

“Yes,” said the wife, “I didn’t ask you to preach a sermon from 
my text. Because I don’t need any sermonizing to convince me that 
I’m right; but I’ll call you to the point of you yourself suggesting 
any ‘something better’ that has arisen from our ‘come-out-of-Baby- 
lon’ experience.” 

“Well, I stand corrected,” said John, and knitting his brow and 
mechanically pulling his beard, he said: “Where there are so many 
things to choose from it is often difficult to select any one in par¬ 
ticular. But as Solomon had choice, not of one, but of seven hun¬ 
dred wives, I need not be particular about any particular one for 
fear of having to give up the other six hundred and ninety-nine 
wives.” 

Here the good wife with outright laughter said: 

“Perhaps, before I understood the spiritual significance of Solo¬ 
mon’s many wives, I would have been a little bit jealous at your lan- 


AN UNCONVENTIONAL RELIGIOUS SERVICE. 


419 


guage! but I’m not a bit so now. For I really see now what great 
comfort can come out of seemingly not very comforting things. 
This, I suppose, is what is meant in the Bible about barren and 
wilderness places becoming places of water brooks.” 

“Yes,” said John, “and getting a little off of the' subject for a 
moment, I’ll tell you something about Solomon’s many wives that, 
perhaps, you never thought of; but as it has applied and will con¬ 
tinue to apply to you and me, I’ll now mention it as a something of 
the ‘new earth’ so much better than the materialistic Mormonized 
idea that the people of the ‘old earth’ had of Solomon. What I al¬ 
lude to is this: 

“All things predicated of all people in the Bible may, in greater 
or less degree, be predicated of any one person. I have found in you 
a whole multitude of sweethearts and wives; because every now and 
then I find either in your conduct, or in your thoughts, or in your 
affections some new thing to love with a new love, so that my 
whole life has been a kind of going on from the delights of sweet- 
heartdom to the loves of marriagedom. So I think that if I con¬ 
tinue to find as many new things to love in you the more I know of 
you, eventually I’ll be about as much married as was Solomon!” 

The wife blushed the suffused blush of a girl who, for the first 
time, is being courted by the one of whom she thinks a good deal, 
and she said: 

“John, I think you are about to turn this religious service into 
an old-fashioned Methodist love-feast; I suppose you think that the 
love-feast is one of the ‘jewels of gold’ that you, like the Israelites 
in Egypt, are authorized to borrow from the Methodists and use 
as though it were your own ?” 

“Well, yes,” said John. “The Methodists had a good many 
good things that should not be lost to the world; and I think the 
love-feast is one of them, although they have left it off themselves. 
1 suppose they have done this because they have ‘fallen from’ the 
grace of a doctrine that they are not very strenuous to maintain. 
The Jews and Babylon fell from so many graces that the best name 
that the Apocalyptic writer could find for them was ‘Fallen! Fallen 1’ 
You know that the old Virginians thought so much of the appro¬ 
priateness of a name that they duplicated it, and would name their 
children ‘John St. John’ or ‘John James John.’ So of ‘Fallen! 
Fallen!’ However, the truth is that Jesus summed the whole law 
and gospel up in one word, ‘Love,’—and if by any service we can 
increase our stock of that precious article, we may say that service 
is not bad, but, like all God’s works, ‘very good.’ The truth is that 


420 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. * 


the marriage of, an angel wife and husband has just such offspring, 
or increase, as that of which I’ve spoken. Every day, perhaps, the 
husband sees something new to love in the thought or affection or 
conduct of the wife. Why, darling, only in the last few months, 
have I been fascinated by a very simple act of yours.” 

‘‘What is that?” queried the wife. 

“Well, it is not a very big thing, but one that sends a quiver 
of delight to my very heart every time I see you do it.” 

“Well, what is it, papa?” 

“Why,” said John, “it is the girlish way that you use your 
hand in pushing the hair back from your forehead. I might mention 
several hundred such things that I have discovered since we were 
married—any one of which would have made me want to marry you 
had I seen it before we were married. Now, you see that, if this 
continual opening of the eyes to ‘behold wondrous things’ springing 
out of the depths of a being like you—made in the very image and 
likeness of God—should continue to eternity, there is no telling how 
much a husband would love. Why, Methusaleh, with his thousand 
years or ‘states’ of life, and Solomon, with his thousand wives and 
v concubines, wouldn’t be a candle light compared to the sun shining 
in the heaven of our love. The Songs of Solomon sung with ‘the 
kisses of his mouth’ would be ours with an ever increasing thrill 
of ‘O thou whom my soul loveth, O thou fairest among women,’ 
—come into the gardens where the flowers blush on the bosom of 
the earth, where the clusters of fruit redden the boughs with vint¬ 
age, where the birds sing that the winter is over and past, and the 
cooing of the dove is heard through borders that are but continual 
celebrations of the nuptial festivities of Spring marrying Summer. 

“Oh, darling,” exclaimed John, “such hopes as these that spring 
from the light of the ‘new heaven and new earth,’—hopes that we 
see are even here on earth being proved true in realization,—such 
hopes are vastly superior to those that the preachers of the Babylon 
of the ‘old earth’ could ever stir in the hearts of their confused and 
blind votaries,—blind to every reality of the world to come. How 
could it be otherwise? For, let us only compare the foundation 
‘creed’ of the whole ‘orthodox’ old earth ecclesiasticism with the 
foundation stones of the Church that is now coming down from God 
out of heaven. By doing this we shall certainly see (for ‘every eye 
shall see’) that we are greatly bettered by getting out of Babylon 
into the streets of the New Jerusalem. 

“The ‘mystery’ that is written on the brow of Babylon is this: 
You know that'the ecclesiastical Council of Nice in the beginning of 


AN UNCONVENTIONAL RELIGIOUS SERVICE. 


421 


the Dark Ages formulated and proclaimed what is called the ‘Athana¬ 
sian Creed/—the name being taken from the name of the church 
elder that wrote the creed. You know that this ‘creed’ is the faith 
of not only the Romish and Greek Churches, but also of the Church 
of England and of the Methodist Church, and, in fact, of all so- 
called ‘orthodox’ churches. Now, I will simply read it, and then 
lead the faith of the True Christian Church, and it will appear seem¬ 
ingly that ‘every eye’ will see the vast difference between the one 
and the other, between the traditions of men and the word of God, 
between ‘mystery’ and revelation. 

“I will read the Athanasian Creed—a cup that has made all 
the kings and merchantmen and people of all earthly or man-made 
churches ‘drunk with the wine of its fornication.’ ” 

Here John read as follows: 

THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold 
the Catholic Faith, which faith, except every one shall keep whole and 
entire, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly; which faith is this: 

That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither con¬ 
founding the persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of 
the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit; but the God¬ 
head of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is one and the same, 
the glory equal and the majesty co-eternal. 

Such as the Father is such is the Son and such is the Holy Spirit. The 
Father is uncreate, the Son is uncreate, and the Holy Spirit is uncreate. 
The Father is infinite, the Son is infinite, and the Holy Spirit is infinite. 
The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal, and yet there 
are not three eternals, but one eternal. And there are not three infinites, 
nor three uncreates, but one uncreate and one infinite. 

So likewise, the Father is Almighty and the Son Almighty and the Holy 
Spirit Almighty, and yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. 

The Father is God. So the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God; and 
yet there are not three Gods, but one God. For like as we are compelled by 
the Christian verity to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and 
Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say there be three 
Gods or three Lords . . . (of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) ; and in this 

Trinity none is before or after another—none is greater or less than another, 
but the whole three persons (of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are co-eternal 
and co-equal, so that in all things as aforesaid the Unity in Trinity and the 
Trinity in Unity is to be worshiped. 

“He, therefore, that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.” 


422 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


And this Babylonish confusion concludes with the following 
materialistic statement: 

At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies. This is 
the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe, he cannot be saved. 

“Now then,” said John, “let us compare with this foregoing un¬ 
utterable ‘mystery,’ written by an ecclesiastical bfshop on the brow 
of Babylon, the ‘creed’ approved by Jesus 'Himself, as follows: 
‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all 
thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind, and thy 
neighbor as thyself.’ ‘On these two commandments hang all the 
Law and the Prophets,’ Jesus said of these two commandments of 
love to God and to the neighbor. ‘This do and thou shalt live.’ 

“So we see that the old earth and heavens founded on the tra¬ 
dition of men required ‘faith’ or belief in an unutterable ‘mystery’ 
of confusion; while the new earth and new heavens, coming direct 
from the God of heaven and of earth, requires ‘lore/ not love in 
the abstract, but love for two beings,—for two definite persons, 
which persons consist of the Lord God who is the Lord Jesus Christ, 
on the one hand, and our neighbor, on the other. So, as love is 
better than faith, as seen in Paul’s description of it as ‘overcoming 
all things,’ so also is the ‘new’ that we have found better than the 
‘old’ which we have left. More especially when the ‘faith of the 
old’ was a faith in an utterly irrational and non-understandable 
‘mystery,’ while the love of the new is for definite persons,—that 
is, for the neighbor that we see every day and for the Lord God as 
‘manifested’ or revealed ‘in the flesh’ or ‘in the Christ.’ 

“Don’t you think that it is much easier to ‘enter into life’ by 
loving the Lord Jesus Christ and your neighbor,, than it is to be 
‘saved’ by believing ‘before all things else’ in such a ‘mystery’ as 
that written of the ‘God in Trinity’ of the whole three persons that 
are co-eternal and co-equal, as written by the church bishop of the 
Dark Ages?” 

“Yes, I confess,” said the wife, “that no person who regards 
the subject from an intelligent standpoint can fail to see that the 
revelation of the ‘new’ is greatly superior to the ‘mystery’ of the 
‘old,’ as to what men shall do to enter into life.” 

“Yes,” said John, “the Athanasian Creed is not only the ‘great 
mystery’ written on the forehead of the beast, Babylon, the ‘fallen’ 
and confused Church plane on the old earth, but it is that definite 
and particular ‘wine of her fornication’ on which I, along with ‘all 


AN UNCONVENTIONAL RELIGIOUS SERVICE. 


423 


of the inhabitants of the (ecclesiastical) earth’ or church in which 
1 was born and bred, ‘have been made drunk,’ as figured in the 
seventeenth chapter of Revelation. 

“Oh, my darling wife, if there be one thing that you ought 
to be thankful about, it is that you were not born in this Babylon, 
and that you never drank as nursing milk of this Babylonian wine 
as I did. You seemed always a citizen of another city (church) than 
that of the great city of Babylon. 

“Of the city where you were born it is written, ‘Glorious things 
are spoken of thee, O City of God,’—the City of the New Jerusalem, 
that ‘Zion of which shall be said this and that man was born in her,’ 
as stated by the Psalmist in his singing a summer song of the com¬ 
ing of the Son of Man with his Bride, the Woman clothed with the 
Sun. 

“Alas, I was born in Babylon, and was exceedingly ‘drunk* 
with the cup of her fornication, and often reeling like a drunken 
man, I have staggeringly been at my wit’s end. But w r hen the waves 
were lifted up and went down again to the depths, your voice was 
always steady in the one Lord that ‘maketh the sea a calm’ and 
bringeth all who look unto Him into their desired haven.’ But 
something—some indefinable, but powerful something—tells me that 
you are soon to go away from the earth. Then, then, mamma, what 
shall I do,—I who was, and am, so weakened by drinking deep and 
long of the wine of Babylon’s fornication, I who have , so often ap¬ 
pealed to you and never appealed in vain?” 

“Why, papa,” sai^ the wife, “you do me too much honor. It 
appears to me that you are the cause of my own knowledge and 
strength. But of the future we know only, as so beautifully sung 
in the one hundred and seventh Psalm, that in all ‘wanderings in 
the wilderness,’ in all the loneliness of ‘solitary places,’ in all the 
‘sitting in darkness and shadow of death,’ in all ‘bands of affliction 
and iron, in all staggering like drunken men at their wit’s end,’— 
from all of these ‘ends of the earth,’ if men will ‘look unto the one 
Lord, He will deliver them.’ He will make ‘the storm a calm;’ He 
will break every bond asunder and turn all waste wilderness places 
into waterbrooks, and to all who have forsaken fathers and mothers 
and brothers and sisters for the sake of the one Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ there will be found ten thousand occasions to exclaim, 
‘Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, for His won¬ 
derful works to the children of men.’ Only, papa, do not you and 
the children go backward into the old Babylon; but forward into 


424 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


the gates of the New Jerusalem, the City of the Woman clothed with 
the Sun, which is but a church with supreme love to the one God 
of heaven and earth and helpful love to the neighbor! 

“Yes, yes, we’ll take no desponding thought of the morrow. 
The mention by the Master of the care exercised bv Him in even 
five-sparrow-for-two-farthing affairs leads us to rest assured that 
all, all in the future, will be well.” 

“Mamma,” said John, “there is a matter that I have often been 
troubled about.” 

“Well, yes,” said the wife,, “about all of us find that we are of 
very close kin to Job in realizing that even ‘as the sparks fly upward, 
so is man born unto trouble.’ What troubles you just now?” 

“The future of our children,” said John. “You and I are, per¬ 
haps, able to stand without the immediate props of an earthly eccle- 
siasticism with its earthly priesthood; but what about our children 
in the world like doves among hawks, like lambs among wolves ?” 

“Why, papa,” said the wife, “you have been congratulating me 
because 1 was not bom and brought up in Babylon, and never drank 
in its errors of doctrine, or, as you often say, that I was never ‘drunk’ 
on the wine of Babylon’s fornication of the truths of God with the 
traditions of the elders. I know that you don’t want the children to 
be your children and not mine, do you ?” 

“Well,” said John, “if the children will follow your example 
—yes, and partake of your life—then I wish that they would take 
altogether after you,—at least in that, while not being ecclesiastics,- 
they yet be Christians. If they, like you, eschew the grievous evil 
of learning the traditions of the elders and instead thereof learn 
the commandments of the living God,—if, like you, they are more 
concerned about the ‘kingdom of heaven’ within their own lives, 
consisting of peace of mind, joy of heart, and right doing of hand, 
than they - are about praying in public places and attending street- 
corner ovations of praise and self-congratulation,—yes, if our chil¬ 
dren can be just a kind of always ‘at hand’ ministering sort of people 
when any little cup of cool water is needed by the fevered lips of 
others,—if, in times of wrath, they can,' like you, ever be relied on 
to eschew ‘grievous words that stir up anger,’ and learn ‘soft words 
that turn away wrath,’ never talking about any one except for good, 
—yes, yes, if above all they can, like you, simply open their eyes and 
behold the simple truths of the Bible in their simple every-day ap¬ 
plication to their own every-day life, then I know, as I know of you, 
that all will be well with them.” 


AN UNCONVENTIONAL RELIGIOUS SERVICE. 


425 


“Oh, papa,” said the wife, “if it be true—and it is true—that 
even a mother may forsake her children, the ‘Everlasting Father’ 
never will. If I as a mother always have had no feelings toward 
my children than to coo-ingly say in my very heart: 

“ ‘Little stumbling child, you have fallen! 

You are crying in darkness and fear! 

Wait, darling, your mother is coming! 

Hush, darling, your mother is,here!’ 

If this be the nature of a poor, earthly mother, what will be the con¬ 
duct all through life on the earth, as well as through the life above 
the earth, of our Father who is in heaven? He is not a temporary, 
but the ‘Everlasting Father/ He is not a feeble earthly monarch, 
but the ‘Almighty God/ He is not one of the ‘lords many/ but is 
the ‘only wise God our Saviour/ 

“If our children can once and for good get the true idea of 
God in their minds, then everything else will become plain. For 
the ‘knowing of the only true God’ is ‘Life Eternal / because He is 
the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It is strikingly singular how the 
understanding of the ‘first great commandment’ about there being 
but ‘one God’ and that the Lord Jesus Christ is this ‘only true God,’ 
—I say it is wonderful how the understanding of this primal truth 
leads to the understanding of all other Bible truths. Indeed, it is 
the ‘first’ commandment in more senses than_one. It is like the ne¬ 
cessity of understanding the foundation principle of any science be¬ 
fore you can possibly understand the science in whole or any of its 
correlated parts. One might as well try to work out a problem in 
arithmetic without understanding the principles of addition, sub¬ 
traction, and multiplication. 

“This is why so little-is understood of the Bible. Not one 
preacher in a thousand knows who the Lord Jesus Christ is. The 
knowfng of the Lord Jesus Christ will not leave one stone on another 
of old church creeds! 

“It is true that, had not the churches about us made void by 
their traditions the first and great commandment that ‘God is one 
God and beside Him there is no God/ it would be better that our 
children have the co-operation to be found in a church ; but to be a 
member of a church that worships either one of several Gods, or 
even worships an ‘unknown God/ or a ‘God without parts,’—well, 
they had better not be members of such a church at all. 

“But I am in hopes that whenever and wherever even two or 
three can be found who with Isaiah can see and say of the Redeemer, 


426 JOHN counsellor's evolution. 

‘I am the First, and I am the Last, and besides me there is no God,' 
that all of my children will gather themselves with such. For while 
this Redeemer, this only wise God, was on the earth, He told us of 
what His earthly church should consist,—consisting, so far as people 
are concerned, not of a great diocesan ecclesiastical organization 
with a rabbi, or a master, or a father, or a bishop, or a pope, as its 
head; but 'wherever two or three are gathered together in My name, 
I will be there in their midst.’ And the relation existing between 
these will be merely as that of 'brethren/ Who can doubt this when 
they read Christ’s own words? 

"Such was the first Christian Church before it fell away from 
the grace and knowledge of Jesus, and such will be the coming 
church of the Son of Man at His second coming.” 

Such were some of the thoughts of the "help-meet” to John at 
the eventide when there was light,—the light of another world shin¬ 
ing into and from her eyes that so soon were to be closed forever on 
all earthly scenes. 


/ 




CHAPTER XLIII. 


FURTHER COMPARISONS. 


A “Doctor of Divinity” Drunk on the Cup of Babylon Wine—How 
“The Lord” is Viewed in the New Earth and the New Heaven, and 
How in the Old—“Faith in Christ”—What It Means—Why So Vitally 
Necessary—The Truth Not a Priestly Seneschal—The New Heaven God 
Is a God of Love—In the “Old Earth” Religion a Matter of Faith, While 
in the New Earth it is a Matter of Life—John Again Bursts Into Tears— 
The Resurrection—Blessed “In” and not “For” Works—Revelation 
Versus Mystery—No Vagabondism or Homeless Life in Heaven—The 
“Beginning” is Not the “End”—Emerson’s Idea of “Going Forward”— 
Why the Publican Stood “Afar Off”—The Two Witnesses—Love is the 
Law and Life of the New Church—Every Place Should Be “Holy”— 
The “Twelve-Gated City”—Who Will Enter Some One of Its Ever Open 
Gates. 


Perhaps no way will ever be devised so effectual for mediating 
new truths to the human mind as that which may be styled the con¬ 
versational way. The greater part of Christ’s teachings was after 
this manner, and many of these teachings were in the privacy o£ the 
family, of only the disciples. 

In fact, there are some “third heaven” truths that it is impos¬ 
sible to mediate down to the earth in earthen vessels, of language 
except by and through such unrestrained and unconstrained familiar 
language as that employed in the conversation at the home fireside. 

Hence, for the benefit of such of our readers whose interest m 
the things and truths called to their attention in the foregoing pages 
is sufficient to lead them to desire to know a little more of such things 
and truths, we submit some snatches of conversation that took place 
at the home fireside of John Counsellor and his good wife, in which 
will be found a comparison between the things and errors of the old 
heaven and earth that pass away at the second coming of the Son of 
Man and the things and truths that are ushered in to take their 
place by the said second coming. In fact, at this coming “all old 
things” pass away and “Behold, I make all things new ” is actually 
realized. 


(427) 





428 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


It is true that this change from the old to the new is with some so 
gradual, like those “born of the Spirit/' that the time of its taking 
place cannot be fixed at any particular tick of clock, as was the case 
with John’s wife. Yet the cleavage between “the old” and “the 
new” is complete from center to circumference. The gulf between 
them is impassable. The things of the “old” are the things of the 
“dark ages,” while the things of “the new” are the things of the 
day of the Son of Man at whose coming there shall be no darkness. 
There is no night there; even “candles” are dispensed with. The 
errors of the old are the mysteries written on the very forehead of 
the great harlot, Babylon; while the truths of the “New” are but the 
crown of twelve stars upon the brow of the Bride whose bridal robes 
were of the sun. 

As a matter of course, as gathered from all the pages of John 
Counsellor’s Evolution from “old” to “new,” the reader will under¬ 
stand that the “old heaven and the old earth” that are passing away 
mean the old fallen Church world that Christ foretold would not 
know Him, even as the Jews did not know Him at the first coming; 
and that the “new heavens and new earth” are but the New Church 
now “coming down from God” upon the earth wherever men will 
receive its doctrines in their minds, cherish them in their hearts, 
and try to live them out in their lives. 

John had just returned from the hearing of an “orthodox” ser¬ 
mon by an eminent “orthodox divine,” and was telling his wife of the 
terrible confusion that seemed to pervade the mind of the “doctor of 
divinity” as to the simplest figures of the Book of Revelation, which 
led to the subject of the difference between the old Dark Age Baby¬ 
lon of Confusion and the New Church foretold in the Revelation, 
and of the betterments that John and his wife had found in coming 
out of the “old” and entering into certain of the twelve gates of the 
new city coming down from God. 

Said the good wife: 

“In the old church or ‘old earth’ the Lord Jesus Christ is viewed, 
not as an ‘Everlasting Father’ as we view Him in the New Church. 
No. The old church does not regard Him at all in His Fatherhood 
nature, but as a Judge to-day and an executor of vengeance to¬ 
morrow. No. He is not regarded, prayed to, or worshiped as the 
‘Everlasting Father’ at all. In fact, in the old church He is viewed 
as pretty much anything that the passing fancy or the changeful 
feelings of men may picture Him to be in their imaginings,—some¬ 
times angry and sometimes good-natured, sometimes trying to save 


FURTHER COMPARISONS. 


429 


men’s souls and sometimes on the war-path to kill them out, some¬ 
times opening the doors of heaven to a very select few, but more 
often pushing the big majority into some awful place of outside dark¬ 
ness and everlastingly shutting the doors against their return. *In 
fact, if there is one single vain imagination of hard-hearted and 
vengeful man’s mind that has not been attributed to God in the old 
church, I hardly know what it is. Preachers in the ‘old earth’ seem 
to think that God is even as sinful and vengeful and cruel as men are, 
when He expressly says that He is not as men. 

“But how differently God is viewed in the new earth, or new 
church, into whose borders we are just entering. Here He is not an 
‘unknown God,’ but one ‘manifest in the flesh,’ according to the words 
of Jesus, who said, ‘He that seeth me seeth the Father.’ So there 
are no ‘three gods’ or ‘three persons,’ but one God, with one body> 
the Son, one soul, the Heavenly Father, and one proceeding sphere 
of life, the Holy Spirit,—which spirit has the same relation to the soul 
and body as a man’s voice, or his looks, or his power, has to the 
man’s soul operating through the body, just the same relation as the 
light and heat shed forth by the sun have to the sun itself.” 

“Papa,” queried the wife, “why do you suppose that so much 
stress is laid in all the Scriptures on what is called ‘Faith in Christ?’ ” 

“Perhaps,” replied John, “no intelligent answer can be given 
to this question from an ‘old earth’ or old church standpoint. But 
in the New Earth spoken of in the Book of Revelation the doctrine 
of faith in Christ, like all other doctrines, is rational, and hence read¬ 
ily seen,—seen from the fact that men on earth can have no idea 
whatever of the Godhead except as that Godhead manifests itself on 
the human plane or degree or life—as in Christ.’ To try to think 
of God out of Christ is, as it were, merely to look into the abysm of an 
endless, sideless, topless, bottomless space such as is described in 
Genesis, when it is said, ‘The earth was without form and void, and 
darkness was upon the face of the deep.’ This is exactly the condi¬ 
tion of all men who try to get some idea of God out of the Lord 
Jesus Christ.” 

“Why is this, papa ?” queried the wife. “What is meant by ‘God 
in Christ’ and God out of Christ?” 

“Simply this,” replied John, “the term Christ is predicated of 
the human body that the Divine clothed itself with so that He might 
mediate His Divine nature called the ‘Almighty God’ and the ‘Ever¬ 
lasting Father’ down to men on the human plane of life, and thus 
‘manifest’ or ‘reveal’ or ‘show’ Hjmself to men on earth. All 


430 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


men are but human, and as such can only see that which is human. 
Hence God had to bend the heavens and come down to the human 
plane of life. And in order to be seen of men He had to ‘make 
Himself a little lower than the angels/—had to ‘take on Him¬ 
self the seed of Abraham/ which was done by preparing 
Himself with a human body called the Christ. Hence, you 
see first “that God in Christ” simply means the same thing which in 
other places is described as ‘God manifest.' Again, you see that men 
being in the flesh cannot get even an idea of God except as this God 
bows the heavens and prepares Himself and manifests Himself on 
the same human plane that men are,—like coming to like and like 
seeing like. In this lies the secret of the great At-one-ment, of 
Christ being called our ‘elder brother.' If you will read the epistle 
of Jude, who declared that tfre Lord Jesus Christ ‘is the only wise 
God our Saviour,’ you will see the fate of all people who endeavor 
to find God, or in their mind or affection to come to God, out of 
Christ—out of His human plane of life. The Apostle Jude said of 
such, ‘They are clouds \yithout water, carried about of winds, trees 
whose fruit withereth, wandering stars,’—just like a man's mind 
wanders and staggers with giddiness when it looks down into the 
bottomless depths just over the edge of a great precipice. Hence, 
Christ is called ‘the Rock,’ ‘the sure foundation,' because in Him 
the human mind finds something tangible to rest upon, ‘to stay itself 
upon.’ Hence, ‘blessed is the man whose mind is stayed on Thee.' 
Otherwise, all is chaos, and as Jude says, all is ‘under darkness,' all 
is ‘without form and void.' Because it is written, ‘Canst thou by 
searching find out God ? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do ? 
Deeper than hell, what canst thou know?’ But when God is seen 
in Christ, seen as ‘God manifest in the flesh,' then we ‘behold Him,’ 
then ‘every eye sees Him.’ So you see the importance of faith in 
Christ, because without this no one can have in his mind any idea 
whatever of God, and therefore can never come to Him. Hence it is 
seen why Christ said, ‘No man can come to the Father except by 
Me.’ Hence, his cry was, ‘Come unto Me/ Men’s ideas of God 
‘out of Christ’ are, as Jude said, ‘mere clouds driven about by every 
wind’ of imagination.” 

“So I see,” said the wife, “that above all things, we can add to 
our list of betterments in the New Earth and Heaven spoken of in 
Revelation a true scriptural and rational understanding of why so 
much stress is laid in all the Scriptures on ‘faith in Christ.’ What 
was meant in the old earth, which John saw pass away, by the word 


FURTHER COMPARISONS. 


431 


faith nobody ever seemed to know,—some saying that it was to be¬ 
lieve that Christ, the second person in the Godhead, paid to God the 
Father, the first person in the Godhead, the full price or penalty of 
our sins; others saying that faith in Christ imputes Christ’s righteous¬ 
ness to the sinner; others saying this and others saying that,—all re¬ 
sulting, as all error does result, in a kind of Babylonish confusion 
which is a kind of ‘earth without form and void,’ with nothing but 
darkness, or mystery, or ignorance, as to the whole matter. The 
fearful condition and end of ‘wandering stars,’ as portrayed by the 
Apostle Jude, is the fate of all men who do not have their minds 
‘stayed upon’ and revolving around the Lord Jesus Christ as the 
only wise God our Saviour.” 

Every man is a wandering star who has more gods than the 
“one God,” or who in his imagination is searching for and expecting 
to find any God—first or third—like the “tri-personalists,” or the 
ten-thousandth, like the Greeks, outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
They are wandering stars,—wandering in .their mind—who pray to 
one God for the sake of another God, who pray to any God except 
the Lord Jesus Christ who is the “only wise God.” 

Another very marked “betterment” of the “new earth" church 
over the “old earth” ecclesiasticisms is that in the old church, as 
stated by a very incisive writer, “the truth is regarded as a very sa¬ 
cred deposit in a box under guard of priestly seneschals, while in 
the New Church Truth is regarded as a tremendous living power 
able to take care of itself and to take care of all who trust it.” 

In the old church loyalty.to truth consisted in loyalty to what 
others said about it; while in the New Church loyalty to truth con¬ 
sists in devotion to what each person himself sees to be the truth. 

“In fact,” said John, “everything in the New Church is different 
from the things of the old one. ‘Behold I make all things new.’ ” 

“But what is of more consoling and joyful nature to me,” said 
the good wife, “is the difference of the old and new heaven and earth 
view of God as a God of love and life, and not a God of vengeance 
and death. The ‘old earth’ view of God makes of Him more of a 
demon than a ‘heavenly and everlasting Father.’ The demoniac idea 
of ‘the old earth’ was that God would have damned everybody had He 
not been bought off with a great price paid to Him. Under the ‘new 
heaven’ idea it was God Himself who made Himself a body so that 
He might come down to men and ‘lift them up’ and ‘save to the utter¬ 
most.’ 


432 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Under the 'old earth’ idea God was a vengeful Ruler executing 
vengeance on every one of His poor, sickly, half-idiotic children, 
who, in their weakness and blindness, happened to stumble and faint 
and fall down, while, under the ‘new heaven’ idea God loves all his 
children more.than you and I love our children, and that we will for¬ 
sake our own children before He will forsake them. And I’d like 
to know when we would forsake one of our children, especially while 
they were sick and out of their head with delirious fever, as sinners 
are said t6 be. 

“The ‘old earth’ idea is that God vengefully says to His children, 
in the doggerel lines: 

“ ‘You have sinned. 

Hell is your due: 

If you don’t straighten up, 

I'll send you there, too!’ 

While the ‘new earth’ and ‘new heaven’ idea of the heavenly love is 
that it follows the children of men into the deepest hell with infinitely 
kind intent and effort. 

“Now, if you have anything better than that, I am more than 
willing to give you the premium for suggesting it. Because you 
know that the wise old apostle exhorted that we strive for the best 
gifts.” 

Here John would have followed with his usual sermonizing on 
his wife’s good text, had he not remembered that she had said she 
didn’t need a sermon to convince her of what she had already learned. 
So, after feeling without expressing it that in his motherly wife 
he had seen the wondrous wisdom of the mother heart, he began to 
say: 

“Let me see. I am really ashamed to advance any idea from 
the man side of things after your womanly kind of betterment has 
been advanced. But, even if a man is not as fair as a woman, it 
is not good for either ‘to be alone,’ so I will give you a ‘betterment’ 
of the ‘new’ over the ‘old’ earth idea of things from a man’s stand¬ 
point, and that is that the old church religion seemed to be more 
a thing of faith than a thing of life, that is, people had to be ‘saved 
by faith alone.’ In this old church men could lead any kind of lives 
up to their death-beds, and then, by exercising a little bit of faith 
in the merits of somebody else’s blood, they would go straight to 
heaven. 

“But in the ‘new earth’ idea of things men must work as well 
as believe, must ‘work out their salvation,’ must keep every law or 


FURTHER COMPARISONS. 


433 


commandment of God into the life of which they ever expect to 
enter. If they expect to enter on the life of citizens of the ‘first 
heaven’ they must not only learn the laws appertaining to citizen¬ 
ship in that heaven, or plane, or degree of life, but must ‘understand 1 
those laws; and in order to get the blessing of such citizenship, 
must ‘do’ or obey such laws. As Jesus said, ‘Blessed is he that 
heareth these sayings of mine and understandeth and doeth them.’ 
So also as to each of the other heavenly planes of eternal life. To 
have abundant entrance into either of these heavens there must be 
a corresponding abundance of ‘hearing and understanding and do¬ 
ing' the laws of life relating to living in such heavens. It is true 
that the hearing and understanding of these heavenly laws, and the 
strength to obey, or live up to them, may be while on earth but the 
‘least of all things,’ such as a ‘mustard seed’ of thirst or a ‘smoking 
flax’ of hunger, or a ‘bruised reed’ of effort. Yet, if men go into 
the world of spirits with this mustard seed, this smoking flax, this 
bruised reed, the ‘angels will take charge over them’ and from these 
‘least of all things’ of the kingdom of heaven they will, by their in¬ 
finite tact and grace and knowledge, bring out trees of life under 
whose boughs al^the beasts of earth and all the fowls of the air— 
all affections of heart and all aspirations of mind—will find the 
greatest satisfaction possible.” 

“Well, that is pretty good,” said the wife. “I about despair of 
getting anything better to enter in our inventory of ‘gains’ in giv¬ 
ing up the life of the old earth and old heaven so that we might find 
the life of the new ones. But I have been thinking much here lately 
of a subject that both of us will have to deal with sooner or later; 
and, unless I am mistaken in certain indefinable feelings, I may 
have to experience the very realities of these beautiful truths into 
whose light we have entered. The subject is—” 

Here John’s eyes filled with tears, as had been the case many 
years before at the thought of his mother being of nearer kin to 
angels than to any one on earth, and he feared that she would soon 
be among the angels. But he turned his head and hid his tears from 
his wife, who continued: 

“The subject is that of the resurrection. Why, papa, if we had 
gained nothing more by coming out of the old Babylon idea and 
coming into the New-Church idea of the resurrection, we would 
be more than one hundred fold compensated for all we gave up in 
the old. In fact, the Scriptures are verily true in which it is said, 
‘There is no man that has left house, or brethren, or sisters, or 


15 


434 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, or the 
Gospel’s, but he shall receive a hundred fold now in this time—with 
persecutions—and in the world to come eternal life.’ 

“What a horrible idea we had of dying when we were in the 
‘old land’ or church. It smothered me then to think of the grave. 
But, under the one hundred fold ‘new’ land idea, how it makes one 
hold up the head at the thought of the evening of the ‘last day’ of 
earthly life as but the ushering in of the everlasting morning of the 
llrst day or state of heavenly life. The resurrection is but the being 
waked up out of a peaceable slumber in one world to life everlast¬ 
ing in a better one, and all this without the grave having any victory 
or death any sting, by keeping us waiting without bodies from age 
to age, as the old preachers declared. Just as soon as our earthly 
body is useless, we find ourselves clothed with a body ‘eternal in the 
heavens.’ In fact, I now look on death a little as I looked on sleep 
when I was coming home from Europe on a ship, i was homesick 
and wanted very badly to get home. One day the captain said: 

“ ‘By sunrise to-morrow we will land at our home port.’ 

“This was at supper, and I wanted to go to bed at once, and go 
to sleep and wake up on my long wished-for hoitie soil. When I 
am dying, think of this. For you know that the Bible reckons 
death like unto a sleep. Think that I am going gently to sleep to 
wake up among home folks—among the angels that we’ve talked 
so much about.” 

“Well, well, well, darling,” said John, with his olden refrain, 
which was caused, not by the beautiful truth that his wife had 
uttered, but by the thought that she, his one great help-meet during 
more than thirty years of life, was going away from his side! 

“Well, well, I must try to offset your beautiful truth about 
death with one about life. In the ‘old earth and heaven,’ religion 
had more to do with getting out of the world than with getting along 
in the world. Hence people were often recluses, and hermits, and 
monks, and nuns, and eunuchs,—keeping out of politics, out of 
amusements, out of marriage, and out of sunshine generally. But 
the doctrine of the New Church is that all religion has direct rela¬ 
tion to life in the world, and that the life of religion is to do good 
in whatever condition you find yourself, whether a citizen, or hus¬ 
band, or wife, or father, or mother, or child, or master, or servant, 
or sick, or poor, or strong, or weak, or any other thing. Just simply 


FURTHER COMPARISONS. 


435 


to do what you at any time find to do. In the ‘new earth’ that won¬ 
derful chapter of contraries to be found in the Book of Ecclesiastes 
is not only understanding^ read, but it is expected that it will have 
to be lived by all who undergo any degree of regeneration to enable 
them to enter into the life of the higher heavens. You are of the 
‘new,’ because, in any time of ‘mourning or of dancing’ you always 
answer, ‘I am here.’ In any time of ‘losing or getting’ you equally 
answer, ‘Oh, papa, I am here.’ In silence or in speech, in planting 
or in plucking up, in weeping or in laughter,, to you and all such as 
you each has its ‘season and its purpose.’ 

“Hence, in the idea of the new earth and the new heaven there 
is no past or future, as it were. Everything is living in ‘to-day.’ 
‘Now’ is the all of time. Everything, even the kingdom of heaven 
itself, is always not afar off, but ‘at hand!’ So that, in the New 
Coming Church, nobody is going abroad to look up a big job, but 
is to be engaged in doing anything ‘just at hand.’ Nobody will be 
in a hurry or flurry to save either himself or others, just as Jesus 
never seemed to be hurried and flurried because He was living the 
life of ‘this day our daily bread,’ and was not troubled about the 
past or anxious about the future, knowing that the dead would bury 
the dead while He took care of the living of to-day, and that the 
morrow would have a sufficiency of things to do only when it became 
‘to-day.’ It is wonderful how an entrance into the light of this 
truth relieves one of all past burdens and dissipates all forebodings 
of the future. 

“The reason of this is that in the new earth and heavens there 
is ‘no night,’—which means that all things are seen to be ‘good’ in 
their season. Even sinners, while in a sinful life, will enjoy hell 
more than heaven, even as a drunkard in his drunkenness enjoys the 
saloon better than the home of wife and children. So let him alone. 
He will finally ‘come to himself.’ Before this he is in his element 
—in his heaven—even though it would be a hell to others. But all 
of these ‘old heavens’—heavens in which hell is mistaken for heaven 
—all such old heavens will be rolled up and pass away at the coming 
of the Son of Man into their horizon. 

“Let every one try to do just all he can that is ‘at hand,’ and 
he will soon realize the secret of the Divine saying, ‘If ye do these 
things (of to-day) ye shall know even as ye are known.’ I greatly 
thank God for an every-day religion, and that ‘everv-day religion’ 
is simply the religion that takes care of ‘to-day,’—doing everything 


436 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


that is ‘at hand’ and never trying to take the second step before the 
first one. In fact, this religion never rushes a person out into the 
wilderness to look up heaven or the Lord, but finds everything just 
at hand and in himself.” 

“Yes,” said the good wife, “that is the kind of religion that 
suits me. I can always find some little thing to do. If I had to 
go abroad to look up some big thing I would despair of ever hearing 
the plaudit of ‘Well done.’ But when I call to mind the fate of those 
who ‘had prophesied’ and had done ‘many wonderful works’ in 
Christ’s name, and the fortune of those who had been handing 
around a cup of cold water and had forgotten such every-day home 
service,—when I recollect the fate of the former and the fortune 
of the latter at the hands of the Judge of all the earth, then I am 
happy in my quiet home and neighbor life, and in praying to the 
Lord in secret. But I must suggest something else that we have 
gained in giving up the old and cleaving unto the new. In keeping 
with your doctrine of a religion ‘at hand’ is that of a religious life 
that is ‘blessed in the deed’ and not for it. In the old church or old 
earth there are so many people who are never happy on earth, but 
expect to be when they, as they say, ‘get to heaven.’ Yes, many ex¬ 
pect to be rewarded for things done in the earth. There are people 
who really believe that they will get high and preferred seats in 
heaven because they are poor. They even indulge in the envious 
belief that the rich will have to take back seats and that the poor 
will have all the front seats. Now, you know that such people will 
be sadly disappointed, when they are resurrected into the other 
world, in not finding a large credit or surplus of good rewards ready 
for them. Such people are living, not in the present, not in the ‘to¬ 
day,’ but in the to-morrow, which never comes. 

“But the doctrines of the New Church, or of the new earth and 
new heavens, make it so plain that people must be .blessed in the 
deeds of righteousness, and not for them; and it is a little singular 
that every text of Scripture bearing on blessings and cursings show 
that they are in the deed and not for it. Why, as a matter of course, 
I would not want you and the children to do little things for me with 
an idea that I was going to pay you for ft. It would violate every 
fine feeling of my whole nature to think of getting a new calico 
dress, or even a silk one, for kissing you, or for darning your socks. 
In the new earth, all learn that they must be happy in leading a good 
life, and not expect pay for it. The difference between a soldier of 


FARTHER COMPARISONS. 


437 


the Cross in the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ is as the difference between a 
mercenary soldier fighting for pay and a patriot fighting for his 
country.” 

‘‘Well,” said John, “as there are degrees of everything, even in 
heaven one star differing from another in magnitude, and the Scrip¬ 
tures speak of a more or less abundant entrance into the kingdom 
of heaven, and speak of sons and servants, and of all having their re¬ 
ward, perhaps the man who does right because he expects pay for 
it will get his reward; but it will be a very inferior reward,—one 
suited to the service of a servant, and not of the loving service of a 
son or daughter. 

“But I must suggest something to add to our gain column. 
So far, I don’t think we have placed anything on our ‘loss column.’ 
I can’t think of anything that we have lost. Isn’t it wonderful what 
altogether gain there is in coming out of darkness into the light of 
a city in which ‘there is' no night,’—nor even need of a candle. So 
I will just simply add that it certainly is a great gain to be in a 
church that has revelation as a study that is understandable, instead 
of ‘mystery written on the brow’ of all high things of this and the 
life to come. The old preachers of the old earth appealed to fear 
and mystery; while those of the new appeal to people as rational be¬ 
ings, and know that people can’t believe everything and can’t believe 
anything without understanding it.” 

“Yes,” said the wife. “What you say is a very great gain. I 
was always so confused when I was a girl in hearing preachers talk¬ 
ing about things that they themselves said were ‘mysteries’ and 
couldn’t be explained, and yet declaring that people would be lost 
if they didn’t believe in such things. I call to mind a president 
of a great Baptist college, who was a near relative of mine by mar¬ 
riage. He used to confuse me with his Babylonish expositions of 
Scripture. Poor good, but foolish man. He died in a lunatic 
asylum. Didn’t you say that the good man who took you into the 
church at Liberty and ‘put you out’ at Clarksville lost his mind 
also ?” 

“Yes,” said John, “but the angels will clear up their minds— 
‘will open the books.’ The Scripture which says in that day ‘every 
eye shall see’ insures the restoration of sight to the blind,—of mind 
to the insane.” 

“I am glad,” said the wife, “that that night or ‘evening’ of 
ignorant superstition is past and that we are in the morning of a day 
that has no night on spiritual things. But I am going to suggest 


438 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


what I think a very great gain, at least for women and very modest 
people, and that is that the New Church, or church coming down 
from God out of heaven, teaches that even in the other life—yes, in 
heaven—people are going to have homes and are going to have 
home people, and going to have clothes. The old church idea of 
people living in great crowds, as at camp-meetings or on circus 
day occasions, and always being in the blare and glare of publicity, 
was always so abhorrent to me that really I often feit as if I didn’t 
want to go to heaven. But, in the light of the new earth and new 
heavens, I see distinctly that not only revelation, but reason and 
the very holiest instincts of the human heart, insure that in the world 
to come people have their own homes and their particular home 
circle of people,—homes just to suit the taste of the home-keeper; 
some in cities, some in villages, some in beautiful country wooded 
and watered places. Why, papa, isn’t this an inspiring thought to 
modest people and women and all who have not led the life of a vaga¬ 
bond, and know what a home is? Yes,—what home life is, as com¬ 
pared with a course of incessant roving.” 

“Well, yes,” said John, “the somewhat singular command that 
Moses gave the Hebrew women when about to go out of Egypt, 
that they ‘borrow all of the jewels of silver and of gold and of rai¬ 
ment of the Egyptian women’ and take them with them,’ clearly 
teaches that every good and appropriate thing of the earth life is to 
be carried with us to the Canaan of heavenly life. And what higher • 
or holier instinct of the human heart is sweeter or better or more 
sacred than the love of home and the home life ? If we didn’t take 
such loves with us into the other life, we would not be human be¬ 
ings, but something else. Hence all of our earth life would be lost 
and misleading. But to our inventory of ‘profits and losses.’ 

“You know that in nature there are two great forces—the'cen¬ 
trifugal and the centripetal. If there was only the centripetal, all 
things would stagnate. If only the centrifugal, all things would fly 
away on a tangent. So both are necessary. The religion of .‘to¬ 
day,’ of ‘now,’ of ‘at hand,’ as I have put it, is the centripetal force 
of religion and keeps one centered on something definite; while the 
one represented by the ‘publican standing afar off’ is the centrifugal 
element that keeps us ever on the move forward. These centripetal 
and centrifugal elements are in each life. In the ‘old earth’ church 
people imagine very foolishly that the very day they are what they 
call ‘converted,’ then and there they are as ready for a high seat 


FURTHER COMPARISONS. 


439 


m heaven as they will ever be,—an imagination that is about as vain 
as that of a student who matriculates at a college and thinks that, 
in buckling on the armor of a student, he can boast himself the same 
as the one who year after year has studied through the college cur¬ 
riculum, and pulls his armor off as a scholar. 

“There is nothing so dangerous in the old church idea of things 
as the thought that the beginning of a thing is the same as the end¬ 
ing. Why, some old earth people actually believe that the thief who 
never began the task of working out his salvation until the day that 
he died will at once be as far advanced in the heavenly life as the 
man who all the days of his life was engaged in working out his 
salvation by digging up the deep-rooted errors and evils of his na¬ 
ture, and, in place thereof, planting and cultivating the truths and 
goods that are the opposites of such errors and evils. 

“The fact is that the other life is like this one. As the apostle 
says, the invisible things of the other life are understood from the 
visible things of this life. So that the people who neglect and 
squander the opportunities of this life and expect to have an equal 
start in the other world with those who are faithful in all things of 
this life, will be as badly mistaken as a boy who thinks, because he 
enters school, thaf he knows as much as the boy who has gone 
through the school. A good many people, on this account, will be 
far behind others in the great race for the goals of life that are ever 
going on in this as also in the world to come. The insanity of think¬ 
ing otherwise than this is such as makes people imagine that they 
will reap where they have never sowed, and if they don’t 
reap where they have not sowed that they will be slighted and 
the old Babylonish doctrine that talks of Tree grace’ will be nulli¬ 
fied, not knowing that this false idea of Tree grace’ is a breeder of 
‘dead-beats.’ The Tree grace gift,’ spoken of in the Bible is that 
God gives the soil, the sunshine, and the shower, but man must use 
these gifts of soil, sun, and shower by hard and intelligent labor. 
Otherwise, with all of the Tree grace gifts’ of sun, soil, and shower, 
the sluggard will be exceedingly short on crops. This idea alone of 
the ‘new’ and the ‘old’ is a gain that will rejoice the heart of every 
man who is neither a dead-beat nor a sluggard, but ‘diligent in busi¬ 
ness.’ In fact, this doctrine of being diligent dovetails into the doc¬ 
trine of being ‘blessed in the deed,’ because, without continual ‘up 
and doing’ there would be no continual blessing and happiness.” 

“Yes,” said the wife, “the greatest happiness that I have had all 
during life is doing this little thing and that little thing every day. 


440 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


Now, in keeping with your idea of going continually forward and 
yet ever ‘standing afar off’ from some higher height that looms up 
before us, I will read a passage from a clear-visioned poet: 

“ ‘Profounder, profounder, 

Man's spirit must dive: 

His aye-rolling orbit 

At no goal will arrive. 

The heavens that now draw him 
With sweetness untold, 

Once found,—for new heavens 
He spurneth the old!’ 

“It seems that Emerson had a better idea of the nature of tfre 
‘new heavens’ than any preacher of the old ‘orthodox’ earth ever 
had. Isn’t it singular how the people of the ‘old earth’ were ever 
committing the sin of Lot’s wife in ‘looking backward’ to the day 
when they were ‘converted,’ instead of pressing forward to enter each 
day into higher and deeper degrees of life ?” 

“Yes,” said John. “While I was in the Methodist ministry, I 
frequently found people, especially the ‘camp-meeting shouting’ 
kind, who made no distinction whatever between the things and states 
of the ‘first day’ and those of the ‘sixth’ and ‘seventh,’ to say nothing 
of that long life stretch between the first and even the second day. 
The New-Church people teach that nearly all from earth at this day 
enter only the first plane or degree of life in the lowest or first 
heaven, owing to the fact that but few pass through the plane or de¬ 
gree of life indicated by the ‘evening and morning’ that were the 
‘first day,’ as stated in Genesis. The doors of all other days are 
closed against those who during life do not sow the seed of such 
grain and fruit as are indigenous to the soil and climate of the re¬ 
spective days of ‘creation,’ or regeneration, as indicated by the six 
days of creation in the first chapter of Genesis.” 

“Well, I see,” soliloquized the wife, with a far-away look, 
“why the publican ‘stood afar off.’ Why, as a matter of course, 
when we think of ever going forward, and an ever receding goal, 
we begin to understand two things, one of which is that we shall al¬ 
ways be ‘standing afar off’ from the end of an endless life, and the 
other is that we shall always be kept with that poverty of spirit that 
has sufficient hunger about it to ward off both gout and dyspepsia. 
How one can be a Pharisee, who is holy and at the end of all things 
attainable, I cannot see. Such I think would be afflicted with a com¬ 
bination of apoplexy, gout, and dyspepsia spiritually.” 


FURTHER COMPARISONS. 


441 


“Well, yes,” said John, “the combination you speak of, even 
physically, is a hard case. I call to mind one who is the meanest and 
most hateful man I ever saw. A spiritual one, I guess, is worse.” 

“Here,” said the wife, “we’ve both had the floor on the same 
text. Whose time is it now ?” 

“Well,” said John, “during all of our life you have been a little 
ahead of me in going forward in all ‘good’ things. Now you give us 
a sample of a gain, not so much on the head side as on the heart side; 
because you know that there are thousands and thousands of coup¬ 
lets in the Bible, such as ‘cup and platter,’ ‘fire and water,’ ‘likeness 
and image,’—‘nations and peoples,’ ‘kindred and tongues,’ ‘sun and 
moon,’ etc., and you know that one word of these couplets is always 
predicated of the heart life or affections and the other of the head 
or thought life—one of the ‘likeness’ and one of the ‘image’ nature 
of us all, and wherever there is a third word, this word is predicated 
of what results from the affections being guided by intelligent 
thought that ultimates both affection and thought in act, or in actual 
life. For instance, let us take the trinity of things found in Verse 31 , 
Chapter XL, of Isaiah, which reads : ‘They that wait upon the Lord 
shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; 
they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.’ 
Here are three things, ‘flying,’ ‘running,’ and ‘walking,’ and to show 
the gain of light in the new heavens over that of darkness in the old 
earth, I will just relate what I heard a D. D. of the old church say 
of this text. He said it was a case of ‘getting religion, in which men 
first fly, then taper down a little and run, then taper down to a walk.’ 

“In this he reversed every scriptural idea of the religious life, 
as he had the beginning on a large, high-up scale and tapering down 
to a smaller and smaller one; while the Scriptures invariably begin 
on the ‘mustard seed that is the least’ and goes on from strength 
to strength to that which is greatest,—from smoking flax to furnace, 
from bruised reed to tall cedar in Lebanon, from man on earth to 
angel in heaven. 

“In the light of the new earth and new heaven the above text of 
Scripture is very differently interpreted. ‘Flying’ is predicated of 
the mind, or thought • life; running is predicated of the heart 
life, or affections, while ‘walking’ is predicated of the life of 
action, or what we call a man’s walk when we say it ‘is good,’— 
that is, his actual conduct. In speaking of the mind, we often say it 
‘soars.’ In speaking of the heart, we say it ‘runs’ out after the ob¬ 
ject of its love. And in speaking of one’s actual life, or conduct, 
we say ‘his walk’ is good or bad. 


442 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


“Applying these meanings, we find that this prophetic text 
shows that the mind thinks some good work, and that the 
heart goes or ‘runs’ out into this thought and quickens it, or infuses 
motive life into it, which results in the good affection being ultimated 
into act or actual life. Now, all men can not only see how much 
more rational and orderly such a proceeding is than the one indicated 
by the celebrated old-earth D. D. in starting on the wing and ending 
afoot,—starting with a big bulge of steam and ending even out of 
wind,—which, however, is the case with a good many shouters who 
lift up their voices in the streets of the old Babylon. 

“Now, darling, we are in a big field. There are too many gains 
to enumerate. As on the side of error and evil hell is a bottomless 
pit, so it had no advantage of good and truth which are perennial 
trees of life bearing all manner of fruit twelve months in the year. 
So we must not expect in one ‘religious service’ to sum up all our 
gains. So we will conclude these exercises by your reciting a gain 
that is distinctly on the heart plane of life; and may be we can jointly 
conclude with one that is on the ‘walk,’ or that plane of life where 
thought and affection ultimate themselves in acts or fruits. I make 
this suggestion because the woman represents the love element and 
man the truth element, and both conjoined represent trees of life bear¬ 
ing fruit. Hence you will see that it is not good for either ‘to be 
alone.’ ” 

“Well,” said the wife, ”1 understand that the new earth and 
the new heaven indicated by the city like unto a ‘woman clothed with 
the sun, with the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of 
twelve stars,’ is to be distinctly a church in which love is the leading 
and controlling and chief characteristic or element. It is true that 
the moon and a crown of stars are spoken of, but these have about 
the same relation to the whole matter, as a woman’s feet and head 
gear have to the woman and her entire raiment. The church life, 
in the new heavens and the new earth, will not consist of disputes 
and debates and doting about questions and strifes of words whereof 
cometh only more dispute and debate and doting, as is always the 
case when the church or woman is clothed with the moon, and hav¬ 
ing stars under her feet, which doting and strife have signally char¬ 
acterized the ‘old-earth’ church. 

“But the New-Church life will be one of love. Love to God 
and love to the neighbor will be the end of all law and of all prophecy 
and of all gospel and of all life itself in this church. And well it is 
so. For what kind of a wife would I make for you, and what lynd 


FURTHER COMPARISONS. 


443 


of a husband would you make for me, or what kind of a father and 
mother would we be to our children, without love ? Why, papa, 
you know that with our hearts filled with love, even our life out in 
our little cabin on the ranch was happier than it would have been 
in a palace without love. In fact, the greatest description given to 
God in the whole Bible, at least to a woman’s or a wife’s or a 
mother’s heart, is not the description given as to His omnipotence 
and His omniscience, but where it is said, ‘God is Love.’ He is so 
much love that He cannot hate,—He cannot feel angry any more 
than the sun in the midst of heaven can be cold or dark. All the 
seeming angry moods of God are but imaginations in the minds of 
men, who, on the principle of like producing like, being evil and 
angry themselves, imagine God to be such. He is not only a God 
of love of ‘to-day’ but an ‘everlasting Father’ of love that will ever 
cause Him to run forth from His Home of Many Mansions to meet 
and fall on the bosom of and welcome home all prodigals who hear 
and hearken unto the loving word, ‘Come,’—Come home!—which 
the Bride of the new heavens says, or which is prompted by either 
the thought or affection of any that hear or hunger or thirst.” 

“Well,” said John, “I think that you have succeeded admirably 
in giving a case of the pure and simple heart side of religion; for 
what could be more of the heart—more of the very concentration of 
love—than the ‘woman,’ ‘the bride,’ ‘the Lamb’s wife,’—and this, too, 
clothed with garments of the sun. Faith, with its disputings and 
strivings about such doctrinal tenets as water baptism, as church 
government, as ‘faith alone,’ as mere ‘obedience,’ as Christ’s literal 
coming to burn up the literal world, as the resurrection of the literal 
body, as the literal worship of God in literal temples made with men’s 
hands, yea, of the woman principle subject to the man principle, such 
things of the head characterized and dominated the old earth and old 
church heaven. 

“But the leading element in the New Church that is now coming 
down from God (not up from man) out of heaven, is to be such as is 
bound up in a woman,—a bride, a ‘Lamb’s wife.’ And all other 
things of that church, such as church doctrine, is to be but as sandals 
on the foot, and the whole head gear but stars as compared with the 
sun. Verily, in this church all things that are not of charity will be 
but sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. There will be faith and 
hope, but charity will be the ‘greatest.’ 

“The people of this new earth will not be so much concerned 
about ‘prophecy,’ for that may fail; nor about ‘mysteries,’ ‘tongues’ 


444 


JOHN COUNSELLOR'S EVOLUTION. 


(disputes as to doctrine), nor mere knowledge without practice; for 
all such things cease and vanish. But charity—love—abideth and 
aboundeth forever. The life of love will characterize the New 
Church, while the mere doctrinal faith, or headwork parade, char¬ 
acterized the old earth after it had ‘fallen’ from its ‘first love.’ 

“Now, I’ll give a scriptural example of the head side of the new 
earth; because it must not be supposed that because the new earth 
has the heart life as its leading element, it has no head life, or doc¬ 
trine. But doctrine should always be to life as the mere letter is to 
the spirit, as the mere garment is to the very woman,—bride and 
wife. 

“In the eleventh chapter of the Book that reveals all about the 
coming new earth and heaven is the portrayal of the leading head 
part or doctrine of this New Church. This doctrine is spoken of 
under the symbolism of ‘my two witnesses,’ also called ‘two olive 
trees’ as well as ‘two candlesticks standing before the God of the 
earth.’ You know, darling, that after years and years of study we 
know that these ‘two witnesses’ are the two great commandments 
that Jesus said testified the whole of law and gospel,—love to God 
and love to the neighbor, and they are called ‘olive trees’ because the 
olive is a symbol of love, and called ‘candlesticks’ because it is also 
the nature of truth to enlighten. 

“This, I confess, is the best scriptural example of what the doc¬ 
trine of the coming church will be,—a continual testifying that love 
to God and love to the neighbor is the whole law and gospel of the 
new earth and new heaven. The diadem of stars on the head wili 
as a matter of course, not be wanting, because the ‘knowledges,’ the 
‘intelligences,’ the millions of sparkling truths that will shine in the 
firmament of the New-Church heavens will be as the stars for mul¬ 
titude. 

“But the life of love—love to the Lord God and love to the 
neighbor—will be the woman—the bride and the wife,—and in the 
garden of the new earth the two olive trees will give the shade under 
which the womanly wife finds loving shelter. 

“Now, as to what the practical fruits are that this new earth 
shall bear, these are symbolized in the closing chapter of the Book that 
treats specifically of this coming church. ‘In the midst of the street 
of it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which 
bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month.’ 
By this is meant that in this new-earth church life religion is to be a 
perennial or daily thing, even ‘yielding fruit every month,’ and that 


FURTHER COMPARISONS. 


445 


religion is to be carried into every act of life, as signified by the tree 
‘bearing twelve manner of fruits/—that religion is to be carried into 
a horse trade as well as into prayers, that the same measure of value 
is to be measured with in buying as is used in selling, that the same 
tone of voice should be used in the synagogue as in the street. In 
this church there will be no separation of the business life from the 
religious life. There will be no places holier than others; for ‘Holi¬ 
ness to the Lord’ will be upon even the ‘bells of the horses.’ It will 
not be an exclusive church,—excluding music and mirth and dancing 
and thousands of natural delights of life,—but will be inclusive of all 
things made of God—a kind of great sheet let down from the new 
heavens upon the new earth, containing all manner of beasts of earth 
and birds of air, with a commanding voice saying, ‘Arise, Peter, slay 
and eat/ for this church tree ‘yields all manner of fruits.’ In its 
borders will be realized the coming time when even Egypt with its 
leeks, onions, and garlic will not be excluded from the vineyard of 
God. And not only this; but good men, good on even the natural 
planes of life, will find one of the twelve gates of this new city open 
for their entrance. 

“In fact, from men who have attained the full measure of an 
angel and who will have an abundant entrance into the highest 
heaven, down to mere door-keepers in the lowest of the heavens, all 
who hear and hearken, all who either-hunger or thirst, or ‘whosoever 
will,’ will be freely invited to enter one of the many gates into the 
midst of this coming city and take its fruits and water of life freely. 
Thousands are entering its portals already. The scientific man is go¬ 
ing in. Nearly all the great authors are catching the inspiration of 
the new age and entering into the life thereof. Even many of the 
• rulers of the earth are beginning in Peace Congresses to turn their 
backs on the battlements of Mars, and are striving to enter one of 
the gates of this city of the Prince of Peace.” 

“Then you think,” queried the wife, “that this church—this four- 
squared city—will eventually gather into its citizenship more people 
than any other church ever has, inasmuch as its gateways are more 
and its dimensions of height and depth and length and breadth are 
greater ?” 

“Certainly,” said John. “The Jewish Church only took in one 
nation, or race of people. The first Christian Church was intended to 
throw down all partition walls and take into its fold people every¬ 
where who would make confession of sin and be baptized with a 
water-baptism. But in the coming New Church there are twelve 


446 


JOHN COUNSELLOR S EVOLUTION. 


gates, three on either side, that will take in people from Egypt to 
Canaan. In fact, it will include everybody in every nation, kindred, 
tongue, and tribe, who does the commandments of the Lord in loving 
God and the neighbor; for all such ‘have right to the tree of life and 
may enter in through the gates into the city/—and everybody does 
this except ‘dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murderers and 
idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie/ But all they ‘who 
are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life shall enter therein.’ An 
‘idolater’ is any one who worships any God except the Lord God.” 

“Well, who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life?” asked the 
wife. 

“Why, everybody who really desires to live a useful and neigh¬ 
borly life,” replied John. “All who are engaged in any pursuit, or 
profession, or calling, or trade, or business, by which they are of use 
to their neighbor, will be citizens of the new earth. To be ‘written 
in the Lamb’s Book of Life’ is to have a peaceable and inoffensive na¬ 
ture, or good will to the neighbor. Most everybody has more or 
less of this nature. For even merchants like to benefit their cus¬ 
tomers ; doctors to cure their patients; authors love to inculcate the 
higher and better sentiments of life; kings love to see their subjects 
prosperous; and even some lawyers love to vindicate justice for jus¬ 
tice’ sake. In fact, there has been of late such a river of life running 
through all lands that all manner of trees of life are bearing on all 
sides of the river all manned of fruit. Verily, the sowing beside ‘all 
waters’ is beginning to produce a harvest of all manner of fruit in 
all planes of life, natural, spiritual, and celestial. 

“And there is a gate on each side of the city for the entrance of 
ail those who are in any degree of good life, whether natural, spir¬ 
itual, or celestial; for, in the ‘day’ of this coming church there shall 
‘be an altar in the midst of the land of Egypt and the Egyptians shall 
know the Lord in that day.’ 

“Even nations that are not ‘healed’ enter into the new earth and 
new heaven,—enter in, not as saints, but as sinners, so that they may 
partake of the ‘leaves of the tree of life that is in the midst of the 
street, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.’ In fact, every 
publican who is ‘standing afar off’ from the good of perfection, and 
smiting on his breast, will be in this city. Every' .Samaritan who 
will stop his business to help a wounded man will be a citizen of this 
new heavenly country. Everybody that can and will give even so 
much as a cup of cold water to any who may be athirst will be num ¬ 
bered with the citizenship of this city of God. There will be no 


FURTHER COMPARISONS. 


447 


order of prelates to close doors against .any who “wills to come;’ be¬ 
cause the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Priest with any power in 
this new heavenly church. And this great prelate, this King of 
kings, this Lord of lords, never was known while on earth for over 
thirty years to cry ‘heresy’ at or stop any man who was trying to do 
any good in any line of life. But He always commended such; and 
as He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, He will receive and 
commend any and every one who goes up to the life to come with 
sufficient thirst to drink water when he can get it, or sufficient hunger 
to eat any of the ‘all manner of fruits’ to be found on any of the trees 
of life in the midst of this new earth and new heaven.” 

“Well,” said the good wife, “I think we can now close our re¬ 
ligious service with the very appropriate benediction uttered by Jude, 
the servant of Jesus Christ, ‘Mercy unto us and peace and love be 
multiplied,’ and ‘Now unto Him who is able to keep us from falling 
and present us faultless before the presence of His glory with ex¬ 
ceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Saviour, be glory and majesty 
and dominion and power both now and ever.’ Amen.” 


THE END. 













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